


infinity starts with you & ends with me

by peterstank



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sort Of, contains spoilers for far from home
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-06-03 16:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterstank/pseuds/peterstank
Summary: His phone buzzes for maybe the eight millionth time since the video. Peter finally works up the courage to look and finds texts and missed calls from Ned, May, Happy, and most surprisingly Flash—who only has his number because of that one time they were force-paired together for a chemistry project.“This is bad,” Peter mutters.“Yeah, no shit,” MJ leans over to read the frantic texts from his aunt, telling him to get home and stay safe—no scratch that, call Happy ASAP.{set immediately after far from home; peter faces the aftermath of That Video}





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re here odds are you’ve seen Far From Home, so that means I can give you an actual summary of this fic without spoiling things for innocent passerby:
> 
> “The One Where Peter Faces Backlash Because People Think He’s Evil So He Stays At The Lakehouse To Ride Out The Shitstorm”
> 
> :)

I

_“Spider-Man’s real name_

_is Peter Parker.”_

He’s imagined how the reveal would go over a lot of times. In his head, it always plays out in a good way: he’s older, more mature. People have more respect for him. And in this future that, as of this moment will never exist, Tony is always right there by his side.

He thinks there must have been some kind of plan; a perfectly safe yet still eccentric way to pull back the curtain and show the world that _yes, the spandex-clad vigilante that presides over Queens is in fact a gimpy teenaged boy! Surprise!_

 _  
_Or maybe it would have been years down the line when Peter was in college, after he’d had a chance to train with the Avengers and shadow Tony for a while longer.

Instead Thanos had wreaked havoc. He tore families apart—tore _Peter_ apart piece by piece, atom by atom, until there was nothing left but dust.

That’s something he tries not to think about.

Now Peter can’t think at all. His mind has gone utterly blank and the fear has creeped beneath the surface of his skin to raise his hair and cool his blood. 

Slowly, the ringing he hadn’t even registered recedes. That drops him right back into reality: perched on a streetlight in the middle of Manhattan, staring at a jumbotron screen that’s gone as black as the pit where his stomach used to be. All around him people are yelling and it’s so loud it takes up all that empty space inside his brain. They’re pointing at him, panicking. 

Peter decides to ignore it all in favor of MJ. 

  
She’s staring at him with an expression he’s never seen on her face, partly because he didn’t really think she was the type to _get_ scared.  
  


But she is now. They all are. 

It’s cheap. A low blow from beyond the grave, Beck’s last attempt at sabotaging the legacy Tony had so carefully crafted. 

“MJ—”

Something whizzes past Peter’s head. He thinks it might be a shoe, or a purse, and he jerks out of its path before it can hit him.

“Go!” MJ calls, eyes widening just a bit further as the crowd swells to swallow her. They’re an angry lynch mob armed with briefcases and hot morning coffees instead of pitch forks, and she gets lost in their depths. 

Peter flips down, ignoring the yells of the crowd. Hands close around his limbs and pull him every which way. More irritated now, he jerks violently out of one person’s grip and they both end up on the ground.

She turns out to be a middle aged woman who looks like she might be pregnant. “Shit,” Peter hisses. “Ma’am, are you okay—?!”

“ _Don’t touch me!”_

She stands and stumbles away, cradling her belly. The only consolation he can find is that she’d managed to fall on her back. 

“Peter!”

MJ’s voice is muffled but shrill; is she scared _of_ him or _for_ him?

Peter manages to push through toward her. In the confusion and chaos, his mask is ripped off of his head. There’s a jolt of panic that dies as soon as he remembers that they already know. He doesn’t need to hide anymore—doesn’t _get_ to hide anymore.

  
His dorky yearbook picture had been plastered onto a screen for all of them to see and now the whole world knows that he’s just a kid.

Peter manages to break free of the swarm. He runs as fast as he can in the direction he’d heard MJ’s voice from.

Peter ducks into an alley and finds her slumped against the wall trying to breathe.

“MJ—”

Her hands fly up—not to push him but to grab at him. Peter starts to hold her back, but she pulls herself up using his body and gasps out one word: “Run.”

* * *

They make it to a little pizza joint in a quieter part of the city. There are a few people inside and some of them give him weird looks, but no one says anything thank god. 

MJ unzips her backpack. She’s still out of breath, but he thinks it’s mostly from exertion rather than panic now. She hands him a pair of clothes.

“Put them on.”

“May I ask how you managed to obtain clothing from my room without me knowing about it?” 

“May gave them to me for emergencies,” she whisper-hisses, because one of the guys at the counter is peering in their direction with mounting suspicion. “Like this one, doofus. _Go.”_

Peter slips into the bathroom without further ado and locks the door. He slaps the spider emblem on his chest and the suit deflates. The space is small and the floor is like, _wet_ , so it’s a bit of a struggle to change into the clothes MJ had provided. At least they’re non-descript: just dark jeans and a black t-shirt with a pair of shoes to match. 

Once he’s dressed Peter takes a breath, leaning against the grimy porcelain sink for support. He barely looks at himself and feels sick: red-rimmed eyes, a cut on his cheek, a split lip.   
  


A knock. Peter admits MJ and they exchange goods: he hands over the suit, she stows it away and gives him a pair of sunglasses.

“I don’t really think—”

“Just put them on.”

He does, even people make memes about the lame ass disguises Avengers use to prowl around in public. Sunglasses and hoodies are so obvious they all tend to stick out like sore thumbs. Peter, with a face that only _just_ got plastered across like, every screen in America, probably stands no chance of blending in.   
  


“Stylish,” MJ remarks.   
  


“If ineffectual,” he says, “but thanks.”   
  


His phone buzzes for maybe the eight millionth time since the video dropped. Peter finally works up the courage to look and finds texts and missed calls from Ned, May, Happy, and most surprisingly Flash—who only has his number because of that one time they were force-paired together for a chemistry project.

“This is bad,” Peter mutters.

“Yeah, no shit,” MJ leans over to read the frantic texts from his aunt, telling him to get home and stay safe. 

Peter bites his lip. May’s idea is tempting but not altogether safe. If people know his name they can look him up, they can find out where he lives. Then they can do a hell of a lot worse than kick him in the gut on a sidewalk.

Another text comes through: _scratch that. call Happy ASAP._

“Peter, you should really let her know that you’re not, like, dead.”

“Yeah, for sure, for sure. Are _you_ okay?”

He only asks because he’s looking at her— _really_ looking—for the first time since Beck ripped off the proverbial band-aid. She’s tense and has that little crease between her eyebrows that means she’s worried.

“You were just attacked by a mob and you’re asking me if _I’m_ okay?” MJ demands, disbelieving and frustrated and maybe even angry. Peter still has a little bit of trouble figuring her out. “You’re insane. No, the fact that anyone could possibly consider you being _evil_ is insane, actually—”

“You’re hurt.” There’s a bruise on her cheek he hadn’t noticed in the struggle. He touches it gently so it won’t hurt, but she winces anyway.

It’s his fault. If she hadn’t been there, if he’d had the foresight to go to her first, maybe pick her up and swing them out of there before things got too hectic—

MJ rolls her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not your fault. Besides, you’re hurt too.”

Peter shrugs. “I’ll heal.”

“So will I.”

“I’ll heal _faster,_ I mean.”

“Whatever, show-off, just call Hogan.”

Peter nods. He makes a split second decision and leans forward before he can stop himself, kissing her purple-painted cheek. “I’m sorry for being a totally shitty boyfriend and fucking everything up after like, a week of dating.” 

  
“I’m _fine,”_ MJ insists, but there’s pink under the purple now and she can’t quite look at him. “And you didn’t fuck everything up, but Beck did, okay? The whole world knows about your secret spider fursona and I think you might be in shock so _please_ just call your aunt’s weird boyfriend?!”

“Right, yeah, totally.”

He dials Happy, who for the first time ever picks up on like, the second ring. “Kid?! Oh my god, where are you? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for like ten minutes! Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me where you are, would you?!”

“I’m, uh,” Peter looks around, scanning for the name of the restaurant, thinking of Scandinavia and that tulip field, thinking of the train, thinking of the way his body had fallen apart and come back together while the world whizzed by and he struggled to breathe. “Sorry, just a sec—”

“Peter? Peter, come on, talk to me!” 

Happy’s voice sounds muffled like he’s underwater or something. Peter can’t quite grasp the words. There are hands on his back and then on his wrist, gently prizing the phone from his grip.

“Harold, this is MJ. We’re at Fredrico’s Pizzaria on, um, 7th Street I think? In Brooklyn. Peter—I think Peter is having a panic attack?”

“ _Okay, okay, just stay where you are, got it? Don’t go_ anywhere. _I’m on my way.”_

Peter can hear a dull stretched sound like a flatline when he hangs up. MJ tucks Peter’s phone into her pocket and then reaches for him, but Peter flinches away from her touch.

It’s not like he means to, but his skin is on fire and the clothes on his back are searing his body and he thinks—he thinks maybe his chest is exploding, and the lights are like flash grenades distorting his vision—

“Fuck. Hey, come on, just breathe, okay? Look at me? _Please,_ look at me.”

He can’t. He has to keep his eyes closed or his brain will combust. It’s too bright, everything is too bright and too loud and _too much._

MJ grabs him, sets him on fire, pushes him out of the way to lock the door. The sound is so damning, so final.

Peter leans against the sink. He grips the cold porcelain so tightly it cracks. Damage, destruction; he could raze the world if he wanted to, couldn’t he?

They think he’s a villain but that’s not what really gets under his skin. It’s that they’d called _Beck_ the greatest hero to ever grace the planet when Tony Stark had _died_ to save them, died two feet from Peter with his eyes wide open but so fucking dark, staring into an oblivion Peter couldn’t see, and the light of the arc reactor had died—

“ _Peter_.”

MJ’s voice breaks through like a sledgehammer demolishing a solid wall of concrete. Peter starts a little. He risks cracking an eye and sees that he’s on the floor with the heels of his palms pressed against his temples. The weight of her hand on his knee is suddenly a little less painful, and he can actually breathe right.

“Thank fuck.” MJ leans back a little but the space is small so their legs are still touching. It should be abrasive but it’s not. “Are you good? Are you okay?”

She’s trying to keep her voice level, but he can hear the way it vibrates, the tiny nuances in her tone that belie her fear; he can hear her heart struggling to settle in her chest, the beating erratic and _so loud._

“I’m okay,” Peter rasps.

MJ takes a few deep breaths. He tries to mimic her. It helps a little.

“Sorry,” he whispers, for a thousand reasons and more. “God. That was something, huh?” 

MJ is silent for a minute. He thinks maybe she’s as mad at him as he fears, or maybe a little disgusted because he’s really not a hero after all. He’s just a scared kid coming down from a panic attack in the dirty bathroom of a pizzeria.

But then she’s right next to him and her shoulder is brushing his. MJ grabs his hand. “I’ve never seen you like that.”

Peter shakes his head. There’s bile rising in his throat, hot and acrid. If he speaks he might throw up.

“I don’t want you to be sorry, you stupid idiot. I know what you did in London. I know you’re not a villain, Peter.”

“But I—”

“Shut up. If you’re gonna date me, you’re gonna have to accept the fact that I’m right about literally everything all of the time.”

Peter startles himself by laughing a little. “Yes, ma’am.”

MJ scoots a little closer almost experimentally and, when he doesn’t flinch, puts her head on his shoulder and loops her arms around his stomach. She smells like peaches and says, “It’ll be okay.”

Peter nods. “Happy’s coming.”

“Happy’s coming,” she confirms. “And I’m here.”

* * *

Frantic knocking on the door of the bathroom makes them both jump to attention. MJ’s weight had been strangely grounding, like it was keeping him from floating off into the sea of space (a thousand stars and scattered ashes, pleas and dying breaths); he’s sad to lose it. 

She opens the door just a crack and then all the way.

“Oh, kid,” is the first thing Happy says when he sees him.

Peter can’t speak. He’s just barely managing to breathe. Happy gets it though, and he kneels down on the grimy floor. “Is it okay to touch you?”

The question surprises Peter. He wonders how Happy knows, if maybe May told him, or—

“Kid?”

Peter jerks his chin hastily. “Yeah, it’s fine. I’m good.”   
  


And so Happy reaches out and gingerly helps him to his feet. “Okay,” he says. “I brought this,” he hands Peter a hoodie, “put that on, and those sunglasses you got are good, too. That’ll do until we can get you somewhere safe.”

Peter’s brain struggles to catch up. He pulls the hoodie on sluggishly, drawing a strangely immediate comfort from it.

“Where are we going?”

Happy looks like he’s in pain. “The lakehouse.”

* * *

MJ isn’t allowed to come.

It’s the second point of contention Peter has. MJ argues with Happy for at least a solid seven minutes while Peter stares at them silently, his mind screaming all the things his mouth wants to say but can’t, while the rest of him drifts out of his body and hovers, looking down from above with a vague and detached sort of interest.

In the end MJ throws her arms around him, stuffs his phone back in his pocket, and makes him promise to call her as soon as he’s safe.

Peter agrees even though he knows odds are they’ll confiscate the damn phone, anyway. 

Happy leads him out the back door of the pizzaria. Peter wonders about the people there, about whether they’d recognised him or told anyone. Maybe someone managed to capture him all jacked up and it’ll make a nice reaction pic. 

He doesn’t really get to dwell on it much at all because before he knows it, he’s being gently pushed into the back of a jet black Audi.

Peter doesn’t speak the entire drive. Instead he curls up in the backseat, not even bothering with the buckle because it’s _Happy,_ and also, he thinks if he has to wear one he might choke or flip out again or something and _no one_ needs that. 

He tries to sleep and settles into some halfway space where the dreams are more like memories, where he can feel his insides slowly churning and crumbling. Then there’s something solid: Tony’s arms around him, his heart beating under the metal of his suit, his lips pressing against Peter’s cheek and the smell of—

Motor oil and Tom Ford cologne.

That’s what the sweatshirt smells like.

This is Tony’s sweatshirt.

Peter wants to rip it off. At the same time, he wants to wrap it tighter around himself, to relish in the mindless, sleepy haze its warmth offers. 

He wonders where it came from. Was it just sitting in the back of Happy’s car? Or is it maybe one of the ones Peter had stolen from Tony back when everything was different, when they would spend hours tinkering in his workshop—just the two of them. 

The Avengers had been split and Peter thinks maybe Tony had sort of come to rely on him a little in those days, but neither of them had ever talked about it and now… well, now they just can’t.

Peter wraps his arms around his torso and presses his cheek against the leather seat, shutting his eyes tight.

Dreams suck some serious ass, but real life might be worse. 

Peter breathes in the scent and lets himself pretend Tony is there with him, pretend it’s his side he’s pressed against and his arm around his waist just like before.

He falls asleep and dreams of a gravestone.

* * *

_—maybe if you’d been good enough, Tony would still be alive!_

a clawed hand reaching toward him, encased in metal, two fingers bare and rotted. half of his face is gone, the bone contrasts the gold of his faceplate, one eye is an empty socket that holds an endless black, and the other is a slit of light that flickers and dies.

_yourfaultyourfaultyourfault—_

* * *

Happy shakes him awake.

“Kid?”

Peter blinks blearily. The drive to the lakehouse is a long one and when he comes to, the sky is already dark.

Through the windshield he can see the cabin, low and innocent looking with golden light streaming through the curtained windows. It almost seems like it’s growing right out of the woods, but Peter is also well aware that the garage is full of high tech weapons and FRIDAY is configured throughout the entire place.

Happy knocks on his forehead. “You in there?”

“No, you’ve reached my voicemail box. Please leave a message after the beep.” 

Happy snorts and steps back, allowing Peter to stumble out of the car. The ground is littered with dry leaves and pine needles that crunch underfoot. Crickets chirp and the moon glares off the surface of the rippling lake. It’s peaceful, serene; not at all the sort of place Peter ever imagined Tony settling down at. He’d been hectic and full of energy—at least around Peter, anyway. 

But people change. And maybe Peter hadn’t really known Tony at all.

Happy’s hand closes around his shoulder. “Kid? You sure you’re okay?”

“What? Totally. I just… I haven’t been here since...” 

_The funeral._

Happy gets it. “I know it’s hard, but there’s really no place else for you to go.”

At least he feels like he’s gained some semblance of his bearings. Maybe it’s the fact that the loss of Tony, that gigantic gaping black hole in his chest, still has a gravitational pull that vastly outweighs everything he’s been through over the past two weeks. It hurts, and it will _always_ hurt, more than so many other things ever will.

He can take bruises, beatings, fucking trains and airplanes, but death?

Too permanent. Too final. Too infinite for a kid who used to deal in the vastness of the universe, who used to daydream about other worlds, who used to stare at his TV screen with his mouth hanging open in awe while Tony Stark addressed the press; a kid who was scattered across the cosmos after being torn apart and reduced to mere stardust; for a kid who saw galaxies within a dead man’s mind.

“It’s fine, really,” he says, even though the pain is like a bullet, cleaving through his insides. “I promise.” 

Happy steers him toward the house. The porch steps creak under their weight and their strides are small. Peter feels a lot like he’s being led to the chopping block, but he’s ready to face the guillotine with his head held high.

Happy knocks in a way that’s so specific it has to be code.   
  


U-S, he deciphers. Cute. 

Voices call out and talk over one another and there’s a panicked underscore to them. 

Then there’s the sound of a high-pitched squeal and the door swings open to reveal Morgan Stark. She beams. “Petey!”

Peter catches her instinctually when she jumps at him, pressing a kiss to each of his cheeks. “Where did you go, you stupid head? I missed you!”

Peter comes back to himself. Morgan makes it easy. “Yeah, I missed you too, Mongoose.” 

Morgan wiggles to get down at drags him inside. “You won’t believe it,” she says, “it’s been _crazy_ here. Mommy’s been on the phone _all day_ and—”

“I don’t care what you saw in that video!” comes Pepper’s loud yelling. “Listen to me, Paula, if you don’t have every mention of Peter Parker removed from your website within the next hour, I’ll sue your company for everything it’s worth—yes, I understand freedom of the press, but I also understand that Peter Parker is a _minor_ with the right to his own privacy—”

It goes on like that: her on the phone pacing the length of the living room and Morgan watching with surmounting awe. Peter and Happy stand back while she single-handedly decimates whatever journalism outlet it is she’s dealing with. 

Then she hangs up the phone with a heavy sigh.

“Mommy,” Morgan says, pointing at Peter. 

Pepper notices him for the first time. “Peter, oh my god, honey,” she comes over and starts fussing with him, pushing his hair from his eyes and weirdly enough feeling for a fever. “How are you doing? Are you okay? I know how all of this must seem to you but believe me, everyone here is on your side. I’m handling it, okay?”

“I—you don’t need to—”

“Don’t even.” Pepper levels him with a flat stare. “Believe me, I’m very good at this. We’ll have everything cleared up soon, but for now I thought it was best that you stay here until the whole media storm passes.”

Peter bites his lip. “What about May?”

“She has to stay in the city for her job,” Pepper says. “I’m renting her out an apartment and doubling the security there. Everything is gonna be just fine, okay?”

It doesn’t seem fine to him. It’s not _fine_ that May has to uproot her whole life just because of him, and it’s not _fine_ that she’s not here, and it’s not _fine_ that Beck outed him like that.

Nothing is _fine._

But Peter nods, because Morgan is staring up at him and swinging their joined hands, and Happy’s is still on his back in quiet support, and Pepper’s shoulders sag with the tiniest amount of relief.

“I meant to see you sooner with everything that happened in London, and Beck, but we were so busy here. It’s been completely insane. Morgan, baby, would you get Peter a glass of water?”

Morgan nods before he can tell her she doesn’t have to, scampering off to the kitchen. Pepper leads him to the couch and gently pushes him to sit.

Everyone’s been doing that all day. Pushing and pulling him, directing him, telling him where he has to go like he can’t think for himself.

“She’s been on a helping hand kick lately,” Pepper informs him. “She’s developed a sudden obsession with answering the phone before anyone else can.”

Peter doesn’t really register what she’s saying. A minute passes, and then a cold glass of water is being pressed into his hand.

Morgan stares at him all innocent, cheeks flushed with something like happiness. “Did mommy tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Pepper stiffens. “I... Peter… there’s something we haven’t told you. Something you really need to know. Now, I don’t want to alarm you or detract from everything that’s going on, but if you’re gonna be staying here—”

He’s about to ask _what,_ what could it be that has her rigid with tension and trying to hide it, that has Happy glancing around in confusion and Morgan practically trembling with excitement, and then—

“Kid?”

He’d vaguely registered the sounds: stairs shifting, wood settling, another heartbeat in the house; even the scent that encases him now with this sweatshirt, but amplified. He’d assumed it was just residual. Remnants of motor oil and Tom Ford woven into the couch cushions and throw blankets, a smell that was home which would inevitably fade with time.

But it’s strong now, so strong it can’t just be from the sweatshirt, and then there’s the voice. _His_ voice. 

Peter is on his feet in a millisecond. He whirls, and the glass slips out of his numb grip to shatter against the floorboards,

because at the foot of the stairwell stands Tony Stark.

“What the fuck?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOPS i accidentally said “fuck canon” again !!!! watch out i can’t be stopped
> 
> honestly i started writing this and did NOT intend for it to end this way, but it got away from me and so here we are. lmk what u think!! 
> 
> also if u want follow my lame ass tumblr: @peter-stank
> 
> p.p.s., everyone make sure to leave out milk and cookies for Father Captain Steve America on this wondrous July 4th,,,bless papa murica


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi um??? what the fuck i am so positively o v e r w h e l m e d at the response to the last chapter i!!!! could not love or adore any of you more, my stardust peonies,,,anyway i’m SO fucking nervous about what you guys will think, but i hope it’s okay? 
> 
> :-)

II

“Language, Underoos.”

Maybe it’s the smile that does it: crooked, eyes crinkled at the corners, a mask for the pain he’s trying to hide. Maybe it’s his voice: cracking the facade of nonchalance he wants to convey, wavering with uncertainty. Maybe it’s the sound of the heartbeat Peter had heard die out months ago, pounding so loud it’s like it wants to escape his chest—

( _you are so gullible_ )

—or, what looks like Tony’s chest. The figure in the faded band t-shirt with the worn out jeans and greying dark hair, expectant gaze melting into something like guilt.

“What the _fuck?_ ” Peter demands again. 

It’s all he can really think to say, and Happy says it with him because he’s right there in the confusion and chaos with Peter. Happy who’s real, who had driven Peter here and given him a dead man’s sweatshirt and stitched him up in a tulip field. He’s real. That’s one fact. 

“Peter, honey,” Pepper’s hands are on his forearms, gently pressing him back toward the couch. “Maybe sit down?”

“Sit down? Are you serious?”

Peter doesn’t want to sit. He doesn’t even want to blink, because what if Tony disappears? He’s not even real but it still _looks like Tony_ and it’s been so fucking long since Peter’s seen him like this, standing on his own two feet and _breathing._

Peter himself away from Pepper and stumbles, his breath thinning more and more. He _can’t,_ it’s not real, Tony is dead and it doesn’t make any sense at all

(Peter had been right there, he’d been holding Tony and begging him: pale skin, blackened veins, eyes vacant as the light over his heart died because his body had just been a vessel all along and everything that really mattered was dead and gone)

Hands close around his forearms and hold him up, keep him steady. Peter blinks dazedly and realises the person holding him is Tony. They’re touching and the illusion hasn’t shattered yet, the world hasn’t cracked into a thousand technicolour shards.

“Kid? Hey, look at me. Breathe, okay? In for four, hold for six, out for eight, remember?”

_Remember?_

Life before the first snap, when the world was a brighter place and not plagued by death, when there weren’t abandoned cars stacked on streetsides and foreclosed houses everywhere and the sky was blue instead of grey, _remember?_ Remember, the lab, the workshop, takeaway Thai food and DUM-E whirring around them as they worked. _Remember._

“You’re not real,” he rasps out. “Stop touching me, okay?” 

“Pete, kid, no,” Tony shakes his head, “it’s me, okay? I promise.”

“Get your hands off of me—”

  
What he’s saying isn’t possible and it doesn’t make any sense and the next thing Peter knows Tony is trying to hug him, just like he always did when Peter was panicking because the security helps him come down from attacks.

Peter shoves him. He can’t be wrapped up in that, he can’t let himself believe this only for the world to fade away, to leave him alone in an abandoned warehouse or something. He can’t lose Tony fucking all over again _._

“Kid—”

Peter shoves him again. It felt good to do it the first time and it helps him gain a couple more inches of space. His breathing is ragged, and even when he hits and hits he can’t bring himself to hurt Tony, real or not. His curled up fists collide with Tony’s chest and then he’s crying, falling, and the world goes black.

* * *

Peter wakes up to stiff joints and a body heavy with exhaustion, weak like he’s run a thousand-mile race.

“FRIDAY,” comes a voice, _that_ voice, “lights at twenty-five percent, please, honeycakes.”

The room floods with a dim golden glow that seems to come from everywhere. Peter stiffens on the mattress—which is impossibly comfortable—and squints at the slanted white ceiling above his head.

The sound of wood creaking shatters the small, still moment of silence.

_Screw it,_ Peter thinks, and turns his head.

Tony is reclined in a chair by his bedside with his arms folded over his chest. He looks Peter up and down with feigned nonchalance. Peter can tell he’s worried. He can see the way his veins pulse against his neck and his fingers twitch. “How you feelin’, Underoos?”

“Shredded,” Peter replies. “And very confused. Aren’t you supposed to be six feet underground in a casket?” 

Tony doesn’t even twitch. He leans forward and reaches out, pausing before he touches Peter to garner his approval. Peter gives the slightest nod, a betrayal of his own instincts, and so Tony presses his hand to Peter’s forehead.

There’s something not right about the way it feels and Tony seems to notice.

“What, this?” He flexes his hand. “Biomechanical. Tech genius from Wakanda hooked me up with it. Pretty realistic looking, huh? But it’s all vibranium under the skin graft.”

Just to prove it, he presses two fingers against the crook of his arm and the skin there sort of _opens:_ a hatch door about two inches wide. Like he said, there’s metal underneath, which he opens further to reveal wiring.

“Pretty complex stuff. Cho helped her out with the surface level details. I hear they’re making a matching one for Barnes.” 

Tony sighs because Peter is just sitting there, staring. “That’s part of why it took so long. When I came back, I wanted to look… _normal._ Or as close to normal as humanly possible. Didn’t want to scare the pants off little Morguna, y’know?”

It makes sense. It makes _too_ much sense. Peter feels like he’s stuck between two magnetic poles, to believe or not to believe, and the pull in either direction is equally strong.

“Kiddo? You in there?” Tony waves his good arm in front of Peter’s face.

He sinks back into himself slowly, squeezing his eyes shut once and then twice to ward off the black spots. Slowly he sits up. “I still don’t understand.”

“I figured.” Tony still gives him a look anyway, and Peter can tell he’s tired. _Exhausted,_ really, is the better word. It’s the same look he had in the time before the blip, when he was running on like, two whole pots of coffee mixed with Redbull. There are dark rings under his eyes and his cheeks have a sunken look like he hasn’t been eating enough. But he’s still here, still alive. 

Maybe.

“You died.”

“Or did I?” Tony leans back in his chair and props his socked feet on the nightstand by the bed. “Okay, yeah, so I did—but it was only _temporary._ Technically I wasn’t dead until like, an hour after we beat Thanos, but my pulse-ox was so low FRIDAY couldn’t even pick up on it. Figures I spend half of my life designing state of the art technology to keep me alive and then, when I actually am, it almost kills me. But it’s not her fault, really, my suit had been pretty banged up in the fight. And I still have nightmares about wrinkled grapes, but you know, what else is new?”

Tony falters at Peter’s blank stare.

“So, me: dead. Long story. Remember how they sent my remains to Wakanda because they wanted to study the effects of the gamma radiation on my body? _Well,_ see, that wasn’t what actually happened.”

“So what did happen, then?”

“Extremis.”

Peter finally manages to meet Tony’s eyes. “Excuse me?”

“It’s an advanced form of genetic manipulation designed to heal physical injuries and—”

“I know what it is,” Peter blurts. “I just… how did they know to use it?”

“Well… because I asked them to.”

Peter finds himself leaning forward. “ _How?_ ”

“Pre-recorded message I’d configured into the nanotech housing unit in the event of my _actual_ death—my heart finally stopped in the middle of transit, and there I was, a hologram. Shuri tells me it scared the shit outta Strange, but that’s beside the point, which is: Extremis had a lot of flaws, and I had a lot of time to fix them during the, uh, _blip._ I had a vial on hand and instructions for whoever it was that had to deal with the reversal of my untimely demise.”

Peter frowns. “So why the arm?”

“Pardon?”

“The arm,” Peter repeats. “I read about Exremis—it doesn’t just _heal_ injuries, it like, reverses them. Grows back limbs or whatever. Why would you need a vibranium arm if you’d been injected with Exremis?”

“Like I said, kid, it had a lot of flaws. This was a sort of watered down version of the serum. It fixed all the radiation poisoning, re-started my heart, all that—but the regrowth? It wasn’t strong enough to do that.”

Too many things aren’t adding up. Peter shakes his head to clear it, massaging the tension from his temples. “Okay, so, all this happened what, the day of the attack? And you’ve been presumed dead for like three months. We had a _funeral,_ you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Tony gives him one of those smiles that’s not really a smile at all, more like a grimace he’s trying to hide. “It was all very… touching, I was touched, I assure you. But it, uh—the healing took time. Not just physically but… mentally, I-I was a bit of a mess, kid.”

His eyes take on a distant look, darkened and almost cold. It reminds Peter too much of the way he’d looked slumped against that concrete slab, holding Pepper’s hand and—

“Pepper,” Peter realises. “You didn’t even tell her, did you?”

Tony winces. “Yeah, and it’s still a bit of a sore spot, so do me a favour and try not to bring it up too much, huh?”

“But you—you let her think you were dead, and Morgan, and—”

Tony is in front of him, warm calloused hands on Peter’s cheeks, speaking words Peter can’t hear. He reaches behind Peter and pulls a blanket up around his shoulders. “Hey, hey, I know,” Tony says. His voice gradually becomes clearer, bits and pieces falling through the cracks of the wall Peter’s panic builds around him, like a kaleidoscope when the shapes finally match up. “I know, and I’m sorry. What happened… it was fucked up on all sides, Pete, I know—but I just… I couldn’t give you hope only to let you down twice, you know? I _couldn’t_ do that.”

Peter can’t stop himself. Maybe he’s gullible and stupid but he doesn’t care; he smells motor oil and cologne and _home,_ so he wraps his arms around Tony and falls against his chest. “That wasn’t your place. I’d rather have hope than nothing at all.” 

Tony crumbles. “Kiddo,” he whispers, and that’s it, like he’s all full up on regret and sorry and everything else. His fingers thread through Peter’s hair and it’s too _real,_ too familiar for it to be fake.

Peter’s fingers curl around Tony’s shirt. There’s a hole in the seam. The fabric smells like coffee. “Tell me something only you would know.”

“What?”

“Just… please. Tell me something.”

  
“Okay, alright, um… remember that time we were working on the nanotech prototype for one of my suits, and I went to the bathroom and you spilled a soda on like, half the bytes and then ended up fixing them all in the time it took for me to take a leak?”

Peter laughs, and then he chokes. “Wait—you _knew?”_

Tony leans back and this time, his smile is real. He pushes Peter’s hair from his eyes. “I found the footage a few months later,” he says.

“Oh.”

Tony tilts his head. He smiles wider. “Hi, kiddo.”

_Real, here, alive._

“Hi.”

* * *

Tony holds him for all of five minutes. Neither one of them make any move to draw away, but then the door opens and Pepper leans into the room. “Everything going okay in here?”

Her voice is soft, like her smile. She’s holding another glass of water and Peter remembers with a blush the one he broke before. He suddenly finds himself unable to speak, so he just nods.

Pepper sets the glass down on the bedside table. Then she perches herself on the edge of his mattress and wraps her arm around his shoulder. “I wanted to tell you sooner,” she says, “but Tony came back the day you fought Beck in London, and I just worried it would all be too much for you to handle.”

“Woah, wait, back up a piece,” Tony holds up his hands, “what’s this I’m hearing? You were in _London?_ And who’s Beck?”

Pepper shoots Peter a grim look. “You’re not the only one we’ve kept in the dark.”

“In the—” Tony sputters. “Pep, what the hell? He fought someone?”

“Yes, he fought someone,” Pepper replies breezily, if a bit exasperated. “It was about a week ago and I knew if I told you, you’d totally freak out—”

“Of course I would freak out! My kid was in danger and it’s my responsibility to keep him safe! What the hell happened?!”

Tony is looking at Peter now with wide, frantic eyes, but it takes Peter a second to recalibrate because _my kid, my responsibility._

“It was nothing, really,” he says quickly, after Pepper gives him the lightest of pinches on the arm.

“Nothing,” Pepper agrees. “Just a small skirmish. Peter was in London on a class trip and ran into one of our old SI employees who’d gotten his hands on some dangerous tech, but he took care of it, okay?”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, you said—you said _Beck?_ As in Quinten Beck?!”

Peter bites his lip. “Uh… yeah?”

Pepper swallows. “That’s why he’s here. Beck recorded a video during their fight and exposed Peter’s identity—”

Tony shoots to his feet. His hands fly to his hair. “You got _outed_ by that sociopathic son of a bitch?! And you’re saying it’s no big deal?! What the _fuck,_ Pepper!”

Pepper stands too, with a lot more calmness and grace than Tony. She tries to placate him. “Tony, you need to relax. It’s _over_ now. We’re handling the situation.”

“Oh, yeah? And when Beck comes back for him? Because I can assure you, a guy like that doesn’t just _give up._ It doesn’t surprise me at all that he pulled a stunt like this—”

“Beck is dead.”

Both Tony and Pepper turn to him. Tony takes a small step forward. “What?”

“He’s dead,” Peter repeats softly. “I… we don’t have to worry about him anymore. He’s gone.”

Tony slowly sinks back down onto the bed. He reaches for Peter’s hand, and despite Peter’s urge to pull away, he lets Tony hold it. “Did you…?”

“Sort of. Inadvertently.”

Tony pauses a beat. “Are you okay, Peter?”

_maybeifyouwerebetter—_

_—anthonyedwardstark—_

_—youaresogullible—_

_—yourfaultyourfaultyourfault—_

“Yeah.” Peter tries for a smile, but he knows it’s weak. “I’m good.”

Pepper’s fingers play lightly with his hair, a gesture of affection he’s familiar with after years of living with May. “You’re on house arrest now, though,” she reminds him, “just like Tony.”

Tony lifts up his leg to display the bracelet wrapped around his ankle, clunky and black. “It’s been hell.”

“He’s being dramatic,” Pepper says fondly. “There’s an approved radius of about a mile. He can go outside, work in his garage, do all the things he normally did before… anyway, this just means he doesn’t have to run errands, so I don’t see why he’s complaining.”

“I _like_ running errands,” Tony gripes.

“Ignore him. You’ve had a long day, huh? Do you want to sleep more, or eat?”

“Hey, if I can’t do the shopping, I get to do the fussing,” Tony cuts in. “Sleep or a meal, kiddo?”

“I…” Peter squints over Tony’s shoulder, spotting the _Ramones_ poster on the wall behind him for the first time. And the _Star Wars_ poster next to it, and the shelves that house assembled Lego figurines and books on quantum physics and chemistry, and— “Who’s room is this?”

Tony hesitates, exchanging a quick and hesitant look with Pepper. “It’s-uh, it’s yours, kid.”

“Mine?” Peter repeats, more than a little disbelieving. “Okay, I know you’re good Pepper, but like, there’s no way you could’ve put this together in less than four hours—”

“First of all, never doubt her skills, and second: we’ve sort of had it set up for a while now. I mean, it _was_ a spare room, but I sort of went all out before the time heist just in case and—since when are the two of you on a first name basis?”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “That’s hardly relevant.”

“‘Hardly relevant’ my ass, it took me _years_ to get this kid to call me by my first name,” Tony grouses, “I had to _die.”_

Pepper and Peter both still. Tony sighs. “Too soon? Yeah, thought so. Pardon my lack of tact, we all know I’m not the sharpest pin in… the place where they keep the pins. Whatever. Anyway—”

“Tony?”

“Yes, Ms. Potts?”

“You’re rambling.”

“Yes, Ms. Potts.”

Peter doesn’t realise he’s smiling until Tony reaches out and pokes his cheek. “There it is,” he says. “I missed that. Hey, no, bring it back, don’t roll your eyes—that is _such_ a teenager thing to do. I’m terrified of when Morgan gets to be your age.”

Peter folds his arms across his chest. “You’re a total dad now. It’s so gross.”

“It’s not _gross,”_ Tony argues with a grin that matches Peter’s, “it’s a good thing. I’m all open and emotionally available. And it means I can do things like this—” he leans in and presses his lips to the crown of Peter’s head, “and not feel like a complete spaz.”

Peter pretends to be disgusted, because that’s just what kids his age are supposed to do, but he can’t quite wipe the smile off of his face as he rubs the spot Tony kissed.

“Stop suffocating him and go make him a sandwich,” Pepper orders, even though she’s smiling too. 

It should be weird that it doesn’t feel strange, but Peter can’t really bring himself to care.

* * *

He ends up following them down into the kitchen. Happy is still here, sitting on the couch with a book in hand. He’s changed into sweats and a t-shirt and looks half at home, but he scrambles to his feet the minute Peter is within his line of sight.

“Kid! Are you okay? God, you scared the shit outta me, you know that?”

“And _you’re_ scaring the shit out of me,” Tony cuts in. He’s standing on the step above Peter and has his hand on his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “I feel like I’ve missed a thousand things. You two like each other now?”

Happy clears his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve always liked the kid.”

“Uh, sure, says the guy who used to beg me to send self-driving cars to pick up said kid because he didn’t want to have to deal with his ‘endless nerdspasms’.”

Peter opens his mouth in shock, but it’s only pretend because he knows Happy never actually hated him. “I’m gonna tell May about that.”

“What?! No, he’s kidding, I never said anything like that—”

“Really? Because that’s _totally_ the sort of thing that would get her to break up with you and like, I still haven’t made my peace with this whole dating thing, so—”

“ _Kid—“_

“Relax, Happy, I’m just kidding.” Peter puts his hands on Happy’s shoulders, “now please move, you’re blocking the stairwell.”

“Right, yeah.”

Happy doesn’t move.

“ _Happy.”_

Happy blinks. “Okay. So I’m gonna go call May—she’s been asking for updates like crazy, by the way—”

“Let me call her.”

“Oh, uh,” Happy and Tony exchange an uneasy look. “We had to take your phone. Safety and all that.”

“So what, I can’t talk to her at all?”

Tony’s hand tightens around Peter’s shoulder. “No one is saying that. It’s just better, for now, if you keep on the DL as much as possible, okay? Now seriously Hap, be Miralax and move, you’re clogging us up here.”

Happy finally complies, hurrying onto the back porch to make his call in private. Peter does his best to tune him out because the last thing he wants is to hear May call Happy ‘ _Harold’_ in that weird, simpering tone.

Tony is watching him with an interest that hasn’t seemed to fade since Peter woke up. “So, Happy and May, huh?”

“Yeah,” Peter nods. “It’s… I mean, at first it was kind of weird, but I think they’re sort of good for each other, so whatever.”

Tony nods slowly like he’s still working through it in his brain. Then he claps his hands. “So, grilled cheese or tuna?”

“Neither.” Peter slips past Tony into the kitchen. “Have you ever had peanut butter toast?”

Morgan interrupts them halfway through their food preparations, bounding down the stairs with a loved-up teddy bear in hand and barrelling toward Peter.

“Petey!”

“There’s the Mongoose.” Peter leans down and picks her up by the straps of her cherry-patterned overalls, letting her stand on the counter in a pair of fuzzy socks. “What are you still doing up? It’s eight-thirty. That’s way past your bedtime.”

“Yeah, but I smelled peanut butter.”

“Valid,” Peter nods, and shamelessly passes her the jar and a spoon.

Tony scoffs. “What am I, a joke to you?”

“No,” Morgan says, dropping the lid with a clatter, “but Petey doesn’t get mad at me for stuff like you and mommy do so he’s my favourite.”

Peter tries not to feel smug, he really does, but then Morgan rubs it in by pressing a peanut-buttery kiss to his cheek and, yeah, it’s gross, but he doesn’t care.

He pretends not to notice the way Tony is looking at them like they hung an entire galaxy, moons and stars and all.

* * *

Morgan ends up falling asleep curled up on Peter’s chest in the living room. Peter feels heavy with exhaustion and her added weight doesn’t help him stay awake.

He rests his head against the leather seat, senses filled with watermelon shampoo, and for the first time feels truly relaxed since he arrived at the lakehouse.

There’s a part of him that still hasn’t wrapped his head around it, and another that’s readily accepted the truth for what it is; it’s the same piece that had to process the complexities of time travel, talking raccoons, space aliens and infinity stones. He’d died on another planet, felt his body crumble into a thousand pieces and spread across the wind, and now he’s lying on a couch in Tony’s living room using a teddy bear named Bert II for a pillow.

So he accepts it, takes it in stride, absorbs the change and breathes through the ripples of its impact.

“What happened to Bert the first?”

Tony jumps in his chair. He’d probably thought Peter was sleeping too and maybe that’s why he’s been staring at them with that sappy look on his face. “What?”

Peter pulls the bear out from behind his head. It’s uncomfortable and he’d only used it because Morgan insisted. Apparently he needs the extra cushioning because he’d hit his head when he’d fallen

(fainted, like a little girl)

earlier. That’s not something Peter remembers and he’s glad Morgan hadn’t said much about it at all beyond that. He’s heard about the resilience of kids a lot, but it’s still strange to see it up close. 

He wonders what Tony being back is like for her. From what Peter could tell she still hadn’t really settled into the idea of him being gone forever, hadn’t quite grasped the finality of death—and now it’s all better now, patched and perfect like a star wish being granted.

“Why is he Bert II?”

Tony suddenly looks like he’s trying not to laugh. “Lawn mower.”

“ _No.”_

“Yeah,” Tony grins. “It was tragic. We put all the fluff in a box and had a little funeral.”

Peter shakes his head. He eyes Bert II with a new interest. _Had a funeral,_ he thinks, and wonders if this Tony will be the same one he remembers, or if he’ll be so different it’s like he’s someone else entirely.

The stairs creak. Pepper emerges from the shadows, painted blue from the light of the TV. She’s got a grim sort of look on her face.

“Fury is stopping by tomorrow,” she announces. “He wants to… _debrief_ you.”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek so hard it hurts, but outwardly makes no move other than to set the bear down and sit up. He nods, gathering Morgan in his arms, and stands.

“Petey?”

Morgan blinks up at him after being jostled from sleep, bleary and rosy cheeked. “Go back to sleep,” Peter whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of her head so she knows everything is okay.

“Peter—”

“Tomorrow,” Peter interrupts, before Pepper can finish. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

Pepper nods. She manages to get a kiss onto each of their cheeks before Peter ascends the stairs. He holds on to the one solid, good thing he can—the little girl with no real bad memories attached to her name. 

He tucks Morgan into bed and turns off her light. When he turns, he finds Tony in the doorway.

He’s crying.

It’s not heavy, but silent and sort of startling. The tears on his cheeks are tinted silver from the moonlight pouring through Morgan’s windows and as soon as he knows that Peter’s seen, he ducks his head.

“Sorry kid,” he whispers, “Don’t know what the hell came over me.”

Peter hugs him. He’s never actually initiated one between them before but doesn’t even bother to dwell on that, because he’s _never_ seen Tony cry before, not even when he was dying.

Apparently the life that comes after death is more overwhelming than death itself.

Peter doesn’t know what to think about that.

He just holds Tony, and Tony holds him back, because they’re both broken like that black dahlia necklace Peter had bought MJ; shattered and missing pieces, but it’s okay, because they can be broken together.

“Pete,” Tony sobs, grasping his shirt, his tears hot and tickling Peter’s neck.

“It’s okay,” Peter says, voice thick and shaking, vision swimming. “Everything’s gonna be fine.” 

“I missed you,” Tony presses, “ _so much._ God, I’m so sorry.”

He shouldn’t be sorry, but the words don’t come out. Peter can only shake his head, still tucked against Tony’s chest. “I’m okay,” is what he says instead. “We’re okay.”

He just hopes it’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it okay? does it suck? lmk i have Fear!!! i wrote this at 3 am with a gnat flying around my head that i swear drove me to the brink of insanity,,,,if i ever see that lil bitch again i won’t hesitate to fucking merk her bug ass,,,, 
> 
> anyway tell me your thoughts I LOVE YOU ALL u!!! deserve the whole world <3


	3. Chapter 3

III

It starts out the same way every time:

Peter is standing in the gutter as the rain pours down in droves, pooling around his feet, soaking him to the bone. The street is blurry, the world a nebulous smear of neon and dim orange from the streetlight.

He’s not wearing his glasses.

He’d left them on the desk in his bedroom.

At the mouth of an alley stands Ben. He’s wearing the clothes he’d died in: a leather jacket pulled over a grey hoodie and a faded pair of jeans. The laces of his shoes are untied because of how quickly he’d left the apartment. 

Peter really wishes he’d tied his shoes. Maybe if he hadn’t knelt down to lace them up, he’d still be alive.

“ _You need to listen to me, Peter. The world is a dangerous place. People do bad things for no reason—”_

“ _I had a reason,”_ Peter snaps back without wanting to.

“ _I’m not talking about_ you _,_ _I’m talking about everyone else! I’m talking about the people who would wanna hurt you if they saw some dumb kid standing on his own in the middle of the night! Do you have any idea what could’ve happened if I hadn’t found you?!”_

Peter’s body is shaking with fury and the frigid gale, but inside the dread is coiling. “ _I’m not a dumb kid, and it’s not the first time I’ve—”_

Ben stands. “ _Not the first time?! Peter, what the hell are you talking about? You’re telling me you’ve done this more than once?!”_

“ _I don’t—”_

The gunshot rips through the air like a roll of thunder. For a half second Peter thinks that’s actually what it was, and then Ben slowly brings his hand to his chest with a mild look of confusion, and the grey of his hoodie begins staining with scarlet.

“ _Ben?”_

Ben falls the same way he always did when Peter was a kid and they would play cops and robbers with a plastic toy gun; like a marionette with its strings being cut, clutching a fake wound and flopping onto the couch.

Only this time it’s not make-believe. This time there’s really a hole in Ben’s chest and a bullet that tore through his insides. This time he’s really lying in a pool of his own blood that runs with the rain water, rippling and spreading.

Peter surges toward him. His body moves on its own and he ends up on his knees, almost like he’s yanked down to the ground by an invisible force.

He puts his hands over the wound and feels how hot it is, and Ben is gasping out words, begging him to take care of May and be safe and _you’re so smart, don’t let go of that, don’t ever apologise for being the smartest kid in the room—_

“ _No, no, please, Ben,”_ Peter begs, even though a part of him knows it’s pointless, “ _please, I don’t want you to go—Ben?! Ben!”_

But Ben’s eyes are glassy and vacant, staring up at the sky without seeing it, and his body is limp.

“ _Ben! Ben, please!”_

Peter keeps shaking him and pleading and pounding on his chest, thinking maybe he can re-start Ben’s heart that way, like when you kick a broken TV and it flares back to life.

Then his breaths start coming shorter and his sorrys turn into wheezing gasps. Peter has to fish his inhaler out of his dead uncle’s pocket and pump his lungs with albuterol.

He slumps against the wall and doesn’t tear his eyes from Ben. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wail.

“ _Ben?_ ”

In an instant the sirens turn into distant screams and the world goes dark. Ben’s body fades away in a plume of smoke. Even when Peter lunges for the curling tendrils he can’t save him.

Peter glances around wildly but there’s nothing in this blank space, until—

ANTHONY

EDWARD

STARK

Peter’s throat shrivels up but the inhaler is gone. He takes a step back and trips over something—a tree root: he’s in a graveyard now and there are headstones sprouting up from the mossy grass, and the soil in front of Tony’s epitaph is moving and shifting.

Then a clawed hand wrapped in gold-titanium alloy bursts through a layer of dirt. It’s followed by a head and a torso and it’s _reaching_ for Peter, grasping at his ankles and laughing when Peter tries to kick and crawl away, teeth clattering like some prop skeleton from a cheesy old flick.

It’s the scariest thing, the way he looks—decayed and empty and hollow and _just like everyone else;_ everything that made him special is rotted away. He’s just a skeleton in a suit, crawling on top of Peter, reaching for his throat—

“Hey!”

Peter wakes up with a ragged gasp. He clutches at the thing nearest him—a body, warm and solid. The arms around Peter’s shoulders try to gently jostle him out of the dream he’s already left. 

Lucidity creeps back in and he realises the body holding him is Tony’s, but that can’t be right. Any second now he’s gonna start rotting away again, and those hands will turn into bony talons, and—

He rips away from Tony and presses himself against the wall, slumped over and sweaty. Tony’s eyes are wide.

“It’s me,” he says, “it’s Tony, okay kiddo? It’s just me.”

Peter shakes his head because he’s lost the confidence to determine his own reality and it’s even scarier than the nightmare.  
  


  
His throat is burning in a way that means he’s either going to cry or throw up, or both. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and waits for the world to stop spinning.

Tony puts his hand back on Peter’s shoulder and Peter flinches.

“No touching?” Tony asks, softer than Peter could ever have thought to expect from him. “Okay, that’s fine. Is it your senses?”

Peter shakes his head. He’s disoriented but not overloaded. He just needs to find his bearings again, remember where he is, and when, and how.

_Beck. The video. The lakehouse._

Tony. He’s with Tony. Tony is safe and Peter is safe and they’re both alive, and this isn’t a dream, it’s _real,_ Beck is dead and Peter is _safe._

“ _Kid…”_

For a second Peter doesn’t understand why Tony sounds so torn. It’s like he’s in the worst kind of agony. Then Peter realises there are tears on his own cheeks and he’s _sobbing._

He hasn’t cried like this since the night he’d thought Tony had died.

But Tony is here now and Peter doesn’t push away anymore when the older man wraps his arms around Peter’s boy. He curls against him.

Tony sags with relief and pulls Peter closer, cradling the back of his head. “It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you.”

Peter keeps crying even though it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. He just feels small and when he feels like that, all he wants is to be held.

He’d heard once that grief was just love with no place to go.

Peter cries it all onto Tony’s shoulder, all of the burning and the pain and the sadness, all of the missing him.

Tony keeps telling him it’s gonna be okay, and Peter thinks for the first time that maybe it really might. He clutches Tony’s shirt just to remind himself that it isn’t an illusion. Beck isn’t going to pop out of the shadowy corner in his bedroom and remind him that he’s a failure, remind him that he’s just a dumb kid.

Eventually Peter finds it in him to stop. He keeps his head is on Tony’s shoulder because his body feels like it might break if he so much as moves an inch.

Tony cards his hands through Peter’s hair, almost absently like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. He’s just staring at the ceiling with a sort of half frown, thinking.

Peter decides, since he’s so tired and all, it’s excusable to tuck his head under Tony’s chin.

Tony’s hands don’t even falter.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Do you remember it?”

“Remember what?”

Peter bites his lip. “Being dead? Do you remember?”

Tony falls silent, but he keeps playing with Peter’s hair, which means he’s not offended or spiralling, he’s just thinking. “No, I don’t think so. Do you?”

_That’s right._ Peter was dead too. For five years he’d ceased to exist. He wonders whether it’s good or awful that he sometimes forgets.

“Not really. But it’s like there’s this part of me that does, and I don’t… I don’t think I _want_ to remember. I don’t think I should.”

_I think it’s bad. I think it’s really, really bad._

Tony’s fingers finally still.

Then he asks, “Do you wanna tell me what your dream was about?”

Peter shakes his head. He contemplates just telling him about the part with Uncle Ben, but then Tony would say things like how it wasn’t Peter’s fault, and that’s not what he wants to hear.

It _was_ his fault. If he hadn’t been so stupid, if he hadn’t snuck out to Delmar’s for a stupid, worthless bag of chips just for the thrill of it, Ben would still be here.

Peter can save a thousand lives, rescue a thousand cats from trees, return a thousand stolen handbags, but none of it will ever make up for killing Ben. No amount of vigilante justice will ever allow him to repent for the first life lost on his watch.

But he’ll keep trying anyway.

“That’s okay,” Tony tells him. “Mind if I tell you about my bad dream?”

Peter raises his head a little. “You have bad dreams?”

“ _Everyone_ has bad dreams,” Tony says. “Especially people like us. It’s sort of unavoidable in our line of work, you know?”

Peter nods. He settles back down and tightens his grip on Tony a little, just to remind himself he’s there. For him, with him, in the thick of the nocturnal hell.

“It always starts with Pepper falling,” Tony tells him quietly, in a fractured sort of voice. “I had her and I was holding on, but she… she slipped. Fell right into the flames, and in the dream, she never comes back like she did in real life. She’s just gone. And then it’s Rhodey falling in Germany, only this time he doesn’t wake up. And it’s you…” Tony sucks in a deep breath. “God, it’s always you. There one second and then gone the next.”

Peter doesn’t know what to say or do, other than to reach for Tony’s free hand and hold it. “I’m okay,” he reminds him.

“Yeah,” Tony nods. “I know that.”

Peter struggles to keep his eyes open with every blink. He feels warm and weighted, swathed in a strange security that he hasn’t felt for a long, long time.

“Stay?” is the last thing he can remember asking before falling asleep.

* * *

“Well, isn’t this cute.”

Tony opens his eyes and finds himself staring down the barrel of a potato gun. Harley fucking Keener stands over the bed Tony had fallen asleep in, the one that’s almost too small for two people—or would be, if Peter wasn’t half sprawled over Tony’s side.

Harley doesn’t look at all surprised to see Tony, which means Pepper must have briefed him before he came up here. Either that or he just has a better poker face than Tony thought.

He smirks down at him.

“Hey, smallfry.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Harley pulls the trigger.

Only nothing hits Tony because Peter snatches the potato out of its arc mid-air.

He chucks it lazily back at Harley. “Go away, Keener.”

And there it is: yet another thing Tony missed during his three month dalliance in Wakanda. He hadn’t been there to see Peter and Morgan meet, either, and runs over the list of reasons _why_ in his head one more time, just to assure himself he’d made the right decision.

Sometimes it still feels like it was the wrong one.

Harley rolls his eyes. “You and your damn Peter Tingle ruin all my fun, you know that, Parker?”

Peter lifts his head an inch or two. “If I hear someone call it my Peter Tingle _one more time—”_

“You’re gonna what, web me up? _Ooo,_ I’m so scared.”

“You should be.”

Harley scoffs and proceeds to throw himself on top of both of them. Tony grunts at the impact of bony elbows and knobbly knees. “ _Why?”_

“What, am I not allowed to join in on cuddle time?!” Harley demands. “See, this is so typical. There I am, sweating a whole ass cheek off in the corn fields, plowing five acres for a buck sixty-five—meanwhile _you two_ are cozying up in this quaint little air-conditioned cabin, keeping secrets and pretending to be dead and stuff. _Not fair.”_

“That’s a long-winded way of saying you were worried about me,” Peter says dryly, eyes still closed.

“I wasn’t _worried,”_ Harley argues. “I don’t worry. It’s not part of my programming.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just, y’know,” Harley clears his throat, “answer your texts next time.”

“They took my phone.”

Harley gasps. “Bastards!”

Peter slowly sits up, squinting. “You mean to tell me you booked a flight all the way to New York because I didn’t _answer my texts?!”_

“Well, that and the whole _Spider Man is Peter Parker_ thing. By the way, you’re a meme now, I thought you should know—”

“Pardon?”

“I know right?! It’s great, I sent you some of the best ones—”

“What the fuck is happening.”

They both turn to look at Tony with wide eyes, like they’d forgotten he was there, which Tony would be slightly offended by if he weren’t so confused.

Harley grins. He pokes Tony’s cheek. “If you’re expecting me to start crying because you’re not actually dead, you’ve got another think comin’,” he says. “I totally knew you were alive the whole time. Connected, remember?”

Tony eye-rolls into another universe as he sits up. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Harley shrugs, but his gaze lingers on Tony like he’s still taking him in, like he’s afraid any second Tony will go up in smoke. He can feel his heart fissuring with that look. It’s the same one Morgan and Peter won’t stop giving him.

Peter severs the tension by whacking Harley upside the head. “That’s what you get for rousing me from my slumber,” he gripes, and rolls over.

Harley cackles and flashes a lopsided grin. “So, are you innocent or guilty, Parker?” 

Peter pulls his blanket up over his head. “Innocent, but that’ll change if you don’t get off of me in the next five seconds.”

Just because he’s a little shit, Harley completely pins Peter and starts poking at his sides. They bitch slap each other a few times while Tony tries not to fall off the bed and/or laugh, because he doesn’t want to encourage them.

“Harley!”

Morgan has a habit of choosing the worst times to make her dramatic entrances. She bursts into the room through the side door that leads to the bathroom, hopping up onto the bed and crowd them all a little more. She throws her arms around Harley’s neck.

“You’re back!”

“I am, and I bring gifts,” Harley announces. 

His smile is too mischievous for Tony’s liking. “Harley, kid, I swear to god if you give her any kind of weaponry—”

“A potato gun!” Harley pulls another, smaller model out of his bag. “I call it the Keener Cleaver 3000.”

Tony snatches it away before Morgan can pull it into her little grabby hands. “Thanks, I hate it.”

Morgan pouts. “But _Daddy!”_

“Don’t ‘but daddy’ me,” Tony warns. “The last time you got one of these, you broke your grandmother’s urn. We are _not_ going through that again.”

“You’re corrupting her,” Peter tacks on, pulling Morgan into his arms.

Harley shakes his head. “Party pooper.”

“Potato popper,” Peter retorts, still trying to blink the sleep from his eyes. Morgan giggles, all tucked up against him, cheeks flushed and hair tousled.

Tony opens his arms and she crawls right into them. “C’mon,” he says, standing. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

* * *

They’re playing with Morgan on the front lawn when a black SUV rolls up the drive. Peter turns, Morgan in his arms, and feels a sick sort of dread slough against his insides.

Harley appears at his shoulder. “So that’s Patchy?”

Peter nods. “Take Morgan into the house.”

“Peter—”

“Dude,” Peter hands Morgan over so Harley can’t argue anymore. “Please.”

He doesn’t want Morgan anywhere near this, but his resolve almost crumbles when she looks at him all confused. “Petey?”

“It’s cool, Morgan,” he says, as casually as possible, “there’s just a really mean dude coming to yell at me, okay?”

Her eyes widen. “What? No way! I’ll fight him!”

Harley grins. “If we’re placing bets, my money’s on the Mongoose.”

“I can take him!” Morgan agrees.

Peter isn’t paying attention anymore though, because from the blacked out car comes not just Nick Fury, but Maria Hill, and Ned, and MJ, and Betty, and…

“ _Flash?”_

Harley whirls around. He’s heard all about Flash from their constant phone conversations and texts, and he’s not against making horrible (but hilarious) jokes at the other guy’s expense.

“No way,” he breathes.

“I should’ve known!” Flash shouts at them. “I should’ve known when you came back from Christmas break like four inches taller!” He laughs. “Best prank ever, Penis!”

“What are they all doing here?!” Peter demands wildly. “This shit is dangerous, there could be people after me—”

“Dude, no offense, but it’s Fury. He’d know if he was being tailed or something.”

“Would he though?”

Harley squints. “Okay, fair.”

MJ locks eyes with peter. He raises his hand in some half-assed attempt at a wave, but MJ isn’t having it. She grabs Ned’s wrist and practically drags him over, she’s walking so fast.

Peter meets her halfway. He doesn’t plan to throw his arms around her, and he wonders if it’s the same for her; if she only realises how much she missed him when she’s holding him again, and the holding happens as a reflex but the worry and the fear and the need is a deeper fuel, one that makes him tighten his grip and shut his eyes tight.

Ned doesn’t hesitate to engulf them both in a hug. “Oh my god, oh my god, _Peter,”_ he gushes. “We were so freaking _worried_ about you! What the hell, dude?! I’ve called you like, five hundred times!”

“Uh, yeah, about that,” Peter says, “I don’t have my phone. But I’m fine, really.”

MJ pulls back. She studies him with that unnerving scrutiny. “You’re sure?”

Peter can’t help smiling a little, because despite it all he’s never felt better. “Yeah, I’m good. Everything’s cool. What about you guys?”

“Uh, mind blown,” Ned says. “I’m literally standing on _the_ Tony Stark’s front lawn. This is _insane._ Have you been here before?”

Peter nods. “For the funeral.”

“And you can’t spell funeral without ‘fun’,” says Harley, who _of course_ is still here. He slings an arm around Peter’s shoulder, holding Morgan with the other. She wriggles in his grip, trying to wordlessly indicate that she wants to be passed to Peter.

“You do realise how awful that sounds without context?” Peter asks, accepting Morgan. She tucks her head into the crook of his neck. “This is Harley, guys. He’s, uh…”

“We’re the Stark Bros,” Harley says.

“ _Dude…”_

“What, you don’t like it? Too bad, I’m gonna get t-shirts made and everything.”

“Is that the mean man?” Morgan asks suddenly, pointing right at Fury, who’s watching them with his hands on his hips like a really pissed off sentry.

Peter sighs. “Yeah, it’s the mean man. Come on, let’s go inside.”

* * *

He leads them into the house. Betty practically coos at Morgan, who eats up the attention and blows kisses over Peter’s shoulder. He tries to avoid eye contact with Fury but it’s a losing battle, as the SHIELD director won’t stop glowering at him.

There’s something about them all standing in the living area that makes Peter’s skin crawl. He’s ripping a curtain away and exposing an entirely different side of himself, a hidden portion of his life. They know Peter Parker, the dorky science nerd who catches things before they fall in Chem and burns his fingers during shop class.

Ned and MJ know Spider-Man, but they don’t know _everything_ about it. They don’t know about Tony, about all of the danger and the secrets; Ned sees it as low-key vigilante groundwork—he’s not well-versed in the area of fighting genocidal grapes on alien planets, or watching people fall, watching people die.

It’s a side of himself Peter has deliberately kept from them because he doesn’t want to put them in danger, and yet Nick Fury’s decided to bring them into the ring.

Peter doesn’t know how to feel about it.

He stays silent as they look around. Ned is practically gawking, taking in the regular looking kitchen and scattered toys with wide, round eyes. He looks like a kid on a trip to the zoo.

“I’m sorry, is this a class field trip or a top-secret government meeting?”

Tony’s voice carries from the dining room and nearly every head whips around, except Peter’s. He watches as Ned’s eyes blow so wide they practically pop out of his head, and Flash take a stumbling step backward.

MJ’s carefully blank expression slides and morphs into complete shock. Wordlessly she rounds on him. Peter can’t think of anything to say, so he just nods.

“You’re—” Ned sputters, “you’re _alive?!”_

“I am,” Tony smiles. “Isn’t it fantastic? But back to my main point: why are there a bunch of kindergarteners in my foyer, Fury?”

Fury folds his arms over his chest and regards Tony with something like disdain. “I see you’ve settled back in nicely.”

“Well, it _is_ my house.”

Fury nods. He scans the dining room. “This’ll do. Everyone take a seat.”

Peter’s classmates are still standing in a frozen stupor, so he takes the lead and drops into a chair close to Tony. Morgan gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before climbing down and running past everyone to the living room, to Peter’s great relief.

“ _Now,”_ Fury urges, and the rest of them surge forward as one.

MJ sits next to him. Under the table, she takes his hand and squeezes.

“So like, how did you survive, Mr. Iron Man, Sir?” asks Flash. Peter doesn’t think he’s torn his eyes away from Tony once, not even to blink.

“That’s a great question, and it’s one I won’t be answering because this isn’t a press conference, it’s a super secret spy confab.”

“For once we agree.” Fury sets a silver briefcase on the table and pops it open. “You’ve all been gathered here today so that I can obtain the full account of what transpired during your little romp overseas. After we’re finished there, you will each sign your own non-disclosure agreement and be on your way. I will repeat myself once and not again: non-disclosure means you _keep your damn traps shut._ You don’t talk about what went down in London, you don’t talk about your buddy Parker here, and you most _certainly_ don’t let loose a peep of Stark being back. Do you understand?”

There’s a chorus of nods. Tony just rolls his eyes.

Harley, sitting opposite Peter, raises his hand. “What if Parker isn’t our ‘buddy’?”

Peter kicks him under the table. Fury doesn’t bat his eye. “I’m sorry, who’s this homeless child in your dining room, Stark?”

“Oh, that’s just Harley, don’t mind him,” Tony says carelessly, flicking a bit of lint from his shirt. “He’s one of mine.”

“And I’m not homeless,” Harley argues. “I live on a farm.”

“That’s actually worse,” Peter says, before he can stop himself.

Harley kicks him back.

“You’ll be needing an NDA as well, then,” Fury says as he doles them out. “I _won’t_ have this getting out.”

They fall into a lapse of silence. Then Flash asks, “I’m sorry, Mr Fury, but… if you didn’t want us to know about Mr Stark, why bring us here?”

“Another great question,” Tony says, and Flash practically preens.

Ned catches Peter’s eye and gags.

“ _Because,”_ Fury says, “this is one of our only close secure locations at the moment, as I’m not about to bring a bunch of six year olds into a SHIELD base. So here we are. There are only a handful of people who know about Stark, and every one of them has their name on a list. If there’s even a _blip_ about him being alive in the press, I know who to look at, don’t I?”

Flash swallows. “Uh… yes. Sir.”

There’s another long, suffering pause. 

“I’m sorry,” MJ leans forward, “are we waiting for someone else, or…?”

“Yes,” Fury says, and that’s all.

Peter hasn’t seen Pepper all morning, so he figures she must be the reason why they’re sitting in a cluster of bouncing knees and shifting eyes. Peter closes his own and sees red, pulsing as his heart palpitates; his brain throbs against the walls of his skull, and—

“Pete?”

Tony is watching him, and then so is everyone else. Peter tries to ignore them. “You good?” Tony asks. Peter jerks his chin in some semblance of a nod.

Tony gently kicks his foot. “You sure? Cuz I can call this whole thing off, or banish Fury indefinitely—I’d really love to do that, actually—”

“Tony,” Peter cuts in, “I’m _fine._ It’s just a headache.”

Tony clearly doesn’t believe him. Neither does MJ, who’s watching him with a furrowed brow. Peter seriously wishes he could pull her aside so they could actually talk, but he settles for raising her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles, something he’d seen Ben do for May a thousand and one times before that night in the alley; a wordless gesture for _I’m fine, please relax, everything is okay._

MJ doesn’t relax. Her body is rigid and her shoulders are tense, and he knows she’s not big on strangers or even people in general. He feels awful, since even though he wasn’t the one to drag her here, he’s still the reason for all of this.

He can feel Tony’s eyes burning a hole into the side of his face and he pointedly refuses to look over.

Thankfully he’s saved as the door swings open and Happy steps inside, followed by Pepper and—

“May!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up: tony finds out peter was hit by an ENTIRE ASS FUCKIN TRAIN 
> 
> it was originally supposed to all happen in this chapter, but then i hit 4k and the Spider Conference hadn’t even started yet, so you’ve gotten Nightmare Whump and our boi Harley “Chaos” Keener—who i just h a d to throw in, but don’t worry, the main focus of the story will always be Peter and Tony :)


	4. Chapter 4

IV

May rushes at him, shrouds him in a blanket of lavender and rose, and grounds him just like always. The unease that’s been clawing at his insides for the past day subsides a little. Peter closes his eyes and lets himself pretend, just for a second, that they’re back in their Queens apartment and everything is okay.

Then May pulls away and it all comes back. She cradles his face as she studies him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m gonna start charging people money to ask me that.”

“Don’t deflect,” May warns.

“I’m _fine.”_

He really is, underneath the disquiet; the pieces of his fragmented brain that scream a thousand different things at the same time. In the very least, his thoughts are no longer clouded by grief. Tony is back, and even though it’s strange, even though he’ll go fifteen whole seconds forgetting and then it will occur to him, and it feels like someone is yanking a rug out from under him—he’s doing _fine._

May squints at him a moment longer and then glances over his shoulder.

Tony is on his feet. May doesn’t look too surprised to see him, which means Happy and Pepper told her everything on the way over. Peter can only imagine her shrill confusion.

“So,” May deadpans.

Tony clears his throat. “May.”

“Tony.”

“I hear you’re dating my forehead of security. That might actually be an HR issue, you know, what with him being Peter’s personal bodyguard now—”

_My what?_

May holds up her hand and Tony immediately stops talking. She glares for a minute, takes a deep breath, and then sighs out all of her pent up anger.

It’s something Peter’s seen her do a thousand times; after being cat-called on the street, after having to put up with her ancient co-worker Laverne with her antiquated ideologies, after coming home to find Peter with black eyes and bloody noses from bullies he’d been too small to stand up to.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” May says.

Tony’s shoulder’s sag just a hair. “I know. Believe me, I know.”

May glances at Fury, before roving her eyes over every other face in the room. Her eyes linger on Peter’s friends almost protectively. “So what are we doing here?” 

It’s Maria Hill who explains this time, so Fury doesn’t actually explode. May nods shortly. Happy pulls up a couple of chairs for them in the meantime, while Pepper excuses herself to bring refreshments.

Maria is nearly done combing over the details when a sucking sound and a pop breaks the flow of her speech.

Morgan is standing in the doorway with a neon green plastic gun, wearing a Rescue prototype helmet and assaulting Fury with a volley of potatoes. “Die, die, die!”

“Morgan!”

Pepper’s protest is virtually useless as she can’t do anything to stop Morgan, her hands filled with a pitcher of water and several glasses. Peter steps in for her, kneeling in front of Morgan and extracting the potato gun from her tiny kid paws.

He pulls the helmet off and brushes her staticky hair out of her face. “Do you know something? I think it’s time for your nap.”

Morgan immediately starts to whine. “But he’s _evil!_ He has an eye-patch, Petey!”

Tony comes over. He’s not even trying to hide his amusement and Peter thinks this might be the proudest he’s ever been of her.

“That doesn’t mean he’s evil,” Peter says as Tony scoops her up. “Also, _where_ are all of these potatoes coming from?”

Morgan points. “Harley brought a whole bag.”

Tony snorts and carries Morgan out. Peter catches him mutter a _good job, baby-cakes_ as he ascends the stairs.

Peter glares at Harley. “Seriously?”

“What?! I was headed into a war-zone! Excuse me for being prepared.”

Peter aims a potato for the middle of his idiot friend’s forehead.

* * *

Once Morgan is settled and Tony returns, Fury gets down to business. He levels them all with a no-bullshit look, like he’s exactly two seconds away from snapping and blowing the whole house up. Tony seriously wouldn’t be surprised if he’d somehow rigged the place with a bomb.

“Before we begin,” says Hill, “there’s something you all need to know.”

She and Fury exchange a glance, which he ends with a grim nod. Tony’s never seen the guy look as sick as he does.

“I’m not in the practise of admitting when I make a mistake,” Fury says slowly, “but in regards to this incident, it’s been brought to my attention that I may have… erred. Somewhat.”

Peter leans forward with a frown. “What happened with Beck wasn’t your fault—”

Tony feels a pang of something, the same something he’s been battling in surges for the past twenty four hours, ever since the kid had passed out in his arms. He feels a lot of things, actually, all at once; a strange amalgamation of emotions that won’t relent. This time it’s pride, because even if Fury’s an ass, Peter is still willing to stick up for him. He’s just good like that, unvaryingly, like it’s coded into his genetic makeup.

Fury cuts him off, of course. “That’s not what I’m referring to. Talos, do your thing.”

It says a lot about Tony that he doesn’t scream like the blonde girl, or fall out of his chair like the chubby kid with the round face. In fact, Tony doesn’t even blink.

He’d spent a month in space with a homicidal blueberry, so watching Maria Hill shapeshift into a pointy-eared, green-skinned alien really isn’t enough to send him reeling.

Beside Tony, Peter frowns suspiciously, but other than that, he doesn’t flip like the rest of his classmates.

“Well that’s just _rude,_ isn’t it?” says the alien. “No wonder everyone thinks Terrans are a bunch of stuck up narcissists.”

Peter holds up his hand while his friends start to settle a little, graduating into laboured breaths and wide eyes. May has her hand over her heart.

“I’m sorry, was Maria Hill _always_ an alien, or…?”

“For as long as you knew her,” Fury says. “Which brings me to my next point: you and I have never met before today. Talos here was impersonating me during your little rendezvous overseas, while his wife covered Hill.”

Tony finally reacts. “And you were _where?”_ he asks dangerously.

“On vacation.”

“Vacation,” Tony repeats. “ _Where?”_

“Off world.”

Tony is about to rise from his chair and tackle Fury into next Tuesday—how fucking _dare_ he leave the kid on his own?!

(how could _Tony?)_

But then Pepper’s hand closes around his shoulder. Tony forces himself to breathe, and when he conquers that, he opens his eyes.

“So let me just get this straight in my head, here,” he says, after listening to Fury’s vague answers to the onslaught of questions the kids throw at him, “you went on an intergalactic retreat to sunbathe on a planet with no sun?”

“That’s about the gist of it,” Fury says. “Problem?”

“A few,” Tony grits out.

Pepper squeezes his shoulder again. _Deep breaths, in and out, centre yourself._

Tony looks at Peter.

The kid is watching it all with a mild interest Tony knows is masking something deeper, whether it’s panic or fear or anger. That’s what he does. He represses, like Tony. Bottles it up to unpack another day.

Peter must feel the weight of his gaze because he glances over, and amidst the churning storm of questions and outbursts from the kids, Tony finally feels the white of his anger recede.

His kid is okay. His kid is safe.

_His kid._

“Enough!” Fury slams his fist against the table. The half full glasses rattle. “I have not the time nor the patience to listen to this. Talos, if you could please assume a human form, I believe you’re intimidating the children.”

“But—”

“ _Assume. A human. Form.”_

Talos sighs and reverts back to the appearance of Maria Hill.

“Let’s begin,” Fury laces his fingers together, composed in the blink of an eye. “Parker, Talos informs me that there were several unsuccessful attempts to contact you prior to the first meeting. Why was this?”

Peter shifts uncomfortably. All of their eyes are on him. “I was… busy.”

“Too busy to engage with the director of the organisation that funds your punk-ass?”

Peter doesn’t even blink. “Tony funds my punk-ass.”

“Oh? And what do you call that suit we made you?”

“...Clunky?”

Fury is losing patience, and Tony is losing his edge. He’s torn between laughing and swelling with a stupid pride, watching his kid evade all of Fury’s questions.

“That suit put us out significantly,” Fury growls. “You think you could do better in the time we were given?”

Peter blinks. “I, uh, I did? I mean, I suppose it depends, how long did it take you to make the stealth suit? ’Cuz I designed another one in like, an hour, but—”

“Shut. Up.” Fury gathers himself.

Tony sees May bristle. “Watch it,” he warns, before she can.

“I don’t need to be sassed by a ten year old.”

“He was stating a fact.” A very cool, very awesome, very _interesting_ fact Tony is definitely going to pick apart later.

“Moving on to the first meeting with Beck. This took place in Venice. You and Beck engaged with the first Elemental—later revealed to be a hologram projection via the EDITH system—”

“Woah woah woah, _back up,”_ Tony cuts in. “EDITH? How the fuck did Beck get his hands on _EDITH?_ And what the hell is an Elemental?!”

The kids all start talking over one another. “It was basically this giant monster made of water, Mr Stark, Sir,” says Flash, while the blonde cuts over him; “It was _super_ scary.”

Peter is pointedly not looking at Tony.

“Kid,” Tony urges. “What happened with EDITH?”

Peter locks his jaw. He’s silent for a moment. “I gave her to him.”

“You—you handed over a multi-billion dollar pseudo-armour system to that sociopathic freak,” Tony surmises. “Might I ask _why?”_

“I didn’t _know_ he was a sociopath at the time!” Peter defends.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves!” Fury cuts across. “You had not, as of the Venice attack, handed over the controls to EDITH. At this time he was using a combination of drones he’d made himself paired with B.A.R.F tech. You assisted Beck in stopping the elemental, but did not personally engage with him, correct?”

Peter nods. “We met later that night.”

Fury continues to comb over more details while Tony’s mind reels. The kid handed it over… why? Why would he do that?

Tony doesn’t get the chance to ask, as they start up again. Something about a fire elemental at a carnival, at which the blonde girl bursts: “I can’t believe you let everyone call you _Night Monkey!_ ”

Harley snorts. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that!”

Fury bristles. “And it was at this time that you discovered it had been Beck behind the attacks all along?”

Peter nods again. He looks pale. Tony doesn’t miss the movement under the table, the one signifying MJ has taken his hand, which they’re absolutely discussing later, too.

Tony feels like he missed a lifetime rather than a quarter year.

“And how did you come to this realisation?”

Peter and MJ give an awkward, stumbling recount of their little midnight gallivant, with Ned chiming in a time or two when they explain how Peter had gone to inform Fury of their discovery.

“Talos has no recollection of any such interaction. What really transpired?”

Peter’s gone from white to grey. He grits his teeth and Tony, though the whip lash of worry that lacerates his heart, feels fucking awful that they’re all subjecting him to this—picking apart a traumatic experience just so Fury can gather intelligence on Beck. Tony hates that he wasn’t there. It’s a deep, black burning that has him digging his nails into his palms, coupled with waves of nausea and dread.

_What happened, Peter?_

He wishes he could ask him alone. He wishes he could sit him down and coax out all the bad things, diluting their haunting effect. Peter doesn’t need these ghosts in his head. He needs normality, safety.

Neither of which are an option anymore in the wake of his exposure.

“It was… confusing. Beck pulled up in a car, only he was using the tech to disguise himself as you. We went to this place—it looked like it was a headquarters for SHIELD, but it was really a warehouse. He used the drones and tricked me into telling him who else knew about what he’d done.”

“Tricked you?” Fury asks mildly. “How?”

“He disguised himself as you again. I thought I’d finally broken out of the illusion, but I hadn’t. Anyway, I got away, and Happy picked me up in the Netherlands—”

“Back up,” Tony cuts in, “you were in Berlin and ended up in the Netherlands? _How?”_

“He’s conveniently leaving out the part with the train,” Happy pipes up.

“Train? What train?”

“The train he got run over by.”

Tony’s vision strikes. He feels his mouth fall open. “ _You got hit by a train?!”_

He’s not the only one who shouts. May’s voice is shrill and rings in tandem with his own, and all of Peter’s friends begin sputtering protests of disbelief and shock. 

A train. A fucking train. A train plowed into his kid. He makes himself sick thinking of it; the deadening crunch of Peter’s bones, breaking and snapping inside his body like twigs, blood and bruises, his body painted shades of purple and black and blue.

_(what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck)_

( _my kid got hit by a train)_

_“_ Peter,” May urges sharply, because Tony can’t even speak. He’s choking, there’s no air, he’s going to—

Peter squirms. “It wasn’t a big train, or anything.”

“Oh, it wasn’t?!” Tony shouts. “Well that just fixes everything, doesn’t it?!”

He grips the table for support, and his breaths are coming quicker and quicker and when had he gotten to his feet?

“Tony, you need to breathe,” Pepper says, but there’s so much noise and even with her hands on his back and chest, covering his heart, it’s just too much. May is still trying to demand answers and Happy is doing his best to calm her down but it’s not working, and there are black spots dancing across his line of sight, and it feels like someone sucker punched him in the gut with an iron-wrapped fist.

“I’m good,” he gasps, trying to shake her off. “It’s—I—what the _fuck_ happened, Pete?!”

“He pushed me,” Peter says, eyes wide and round at the sight of Tony _falling apart,_ “but I’m _fine,_ I’m serious. Happy stitched me up and we went to London.”

“No, no, we are _not_ glossing over this. Nuh-uh.”

“You didn’t freak out this much with the plane crash.”

“Oh no, he did,” Happy says, “you just weren’t around for that part.”

Tony doesn’t understand how he can act like this, like it’s no big deal, like he couldn’t have _died._ “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“You’re _not_ having a heart attack,” Peter, Pepper, and Harley say together, but it’s not funny, because he _feels_ like he is.   
  
  


It’s like someone is squeezing his heart, or using it as a sandbag, and _how many blows will it be able to tolerate before it finally gives out?_  
  
  


“ _Peter_ ,” May says, “you can’t just... not tell us things like that! I mean, what the hell?!”

“Happy lied, too!” Peter points out.   
  
  


“Hey!”

“No, dude, she’s right,” Ned Leeds chimes in. “That’s like... bad.”

Bad. A wonderful word that perfectly encompasses all of this _bullshit_.   
  


He’s still trying to sort through it, grasping at broken pieces that cut his palms. It _hurts_ to think about. “So… so you were hit by a train. And ended up in the Netherlands. How’d you get to Happy?”

“I busted out of the Netherlands prison and borrowed some guy’s phone. He was really nice.”

Tony blinks. “You busted… what?”

Peter sighs. “You’re making all of this into a way bigger deal than it was. Their security was like, a padlock and one dude. It wasn’t hard.”

He’s trying to brush it off, but there’s something in his voice that tells Tony all he needs to know: Peter doesn’t want to talk about this and it’s not because he’s embarrassed, it’s because if he does it might break him.

Suddenly there’s a hand around his arm, squeezing gently before pulling away.

Harley.   
  
  


_Just breathe, okay? Really, just breathe with me._   
  


Tony presses the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Okay, here’s a question: they find you all beat up and probably dying on this train and they take you to prison instead of a _hospital?_ What were their names? I’m suing.”

Peter gives him a look. “I snuck onto a train and entered their country without a passport. _Illegally.”_

“Do I care about the technicalities, Peter?”

“You should.”

“I _don’t.”_

“ _Boys,”_ Pepper cuts in. “Focus, please. And Tony, honey, _sit down._ You’re gonna wear a hole into the rug.”

“It’s an ugly rug, anyway.”

“It’s worth ten thousand dollars.”

“Who picked it out?”

“It was a gift.”

“A gift? From who?”

“From me,” Happy says dryly.

“Ah,” Tony clears his throat as he settles into his chair. “It’s a lovely rug.”

Fury clears his throat abruptly. He looks downright murderous now. “If we could please return to the matter at hand, Stark.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Tony leans back and folds his arms over his chest. “What happened next? Did you get steamrolled, perhaps? Or shot full of holes?”

“Bullets are no big deal—”

“Okay,” MJ throws up her hands, “I’m sorry, _how_ many times have you almost died?!”

“Yeah, I think we’d all like an answer to that question,” Tony says, somewhat dry, because everything else he wants to _scream_ at Peter is abrading his throat. 

It isn’t okay. None of this is okay. And Peter is sitting there like it is, and Tony wants to rip his hair out.

Either that or swaddle the kid in a thousand blankets and never let him leave Tony’s house ever again.

They go over London. The kids all give their own account of the drone attack in the museum, which Fury listens to with a dark scowl. Tony can’t help but feel a little impressed when Betty Brant gushes over MJ throttling one of the drones with a mace.

With the look Peter gives her, Tony knows his kid feels the same way, times a hundred.

“Your altercation with Beck took place above the Tower Bridge in London, correct?”

Peter nods.

“And what transpired between the two of you?”

Peter looks down, gathers himself, and speaks. “We fought. He used the drones again, but I was ready this time. A shot meant for me hit him instead. I took EDITH back and told her to terminate all of the drones.”

_A shot meant for me hit him instead._

_A shot meant for me._

“So you did not, in fact, kill Quinten Beck?”

“No.”

“And with these statements I can easily conclude that Peter Parker was not behind the attacks on London, Berlin, or Venice,” Fury goes on.

“Well that’s great for you and all,” MJ says, “but how do you make the rest of the world believe it?”

“The footage from the glasses, obviously,” says Tony. “You do have them, right?”

“We brought them,” May pipes up. “And the Iron Spider suit. They’re in the car.”

“Well, there you go.”

Peter shakes his head suddenly. “Wait a minute—you don’t want to play it right now, do you?”

Fury raises an eyebrow. “You got something to hide, Parker?”

“What? No. No, it’s just… not everyone needs to see that. Can you just take the glasses?”

“No, not allowed,” Tony says. “I’ll extract the necessary footage and download it onto a flash drive and give them that to use as evidence. Bada-bing, bada-boom, your name is cleared. Piece of cake.”

Fury rolls his one good eye, and for the first time Tony doesn’t notice the way Peter drastically pales.

* * *

The nanobytes spring to life, a swirling churn of red, blue, and gold. Peter turns away from the suit even when Ned keeps gawking at it.

MJ is sitting on his bed, her legs crossed Indian style and her elbows on her knees. It’s almost easy to pretend they’re just here to study or watch a movie, but Peter’s enhanced senses pick up Fury’s monotonous voice from below, and his eyes drift to the tracker they’d slapped around his ankle. It ruins the comforting fantasy.

“You guys,” Ned whispers, still staring at the suit, “there’s an alien in the house with us right now.”

Peter fights a smile. He raises his eyebrows at MJ, silently asking whether or not it’s okay to sit. MJ shrugs and squints at him. “You didn’t seem very surprised by the alien, Peter.”

“I’ve been to space,” Peter reminds her.

_I died in space._

Ned looks up at last. “Yeah, uh, we _still_ haven't talked about that—and like, I was totally down with giving you time to grieve and stuff, but now that Mr Stark is alive again I want to know _everything.”_

Peter looks down at his hands and realises they’re shaking, balled into fists. When he unfurls them he sees that there are crescents pressed into his skin, red and raw.

MJ takes one of his hands.

“Space was… I don’t know. We were in a flying donut ship for most of it, and then…”

_Titan. Thanos. Death._

Peter’s body suddenly aches with the phantom pain of being ripped apart atom by atom.

Ned softens. “It’s cool, dude,” he says, “some other time. Hey, do you think Mr Stark would be down for us spending the night? Not like, Flash, or Betty, or anything—”

“Why not Betty?” Peter asks.

“I don’t know,” Ned shrugs. “Things have been a little awkward. I mean, we’re both being super mature about it, _of course,_ but these things… they take time.”

He nods to himself and Peter can’t suppress his smile.

“Uh, I’m gonna go get some food,” Ned says suddenly.

“You mean, you’re gonna spy on that weird alien dude,” MJ corrects.

“ _What? No!_ No way! I haven’t eaten anything all day, okay? Let me live!”

Then he’s gone in a suspicious blunder. The door is left closed except for the tiniest crack. Peter looks at MJ.

It’s the first time he’s been alone with her in twenty four hours, and he’s not one of _those_ boyfriends that needs to be around her every minute of every day, but after everything he’s been through since yesterday morning, he’s just…

Really, really glad she’s here.

MJ hugs him. Like, really hugs him, and her hair smells like green apples and it just feels nice to hold her, to know she’s real and okay.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I mean, I didn’t really have a choice,” MJ says as she pulls back, “but I would’ve drop-kicked Nick Fury in my duplex hallway if he’d suggested taking me anywhere else, so.”

Peter grins, but it falters. “So… do your parents know?”

“That I’m dating Spider-Man? Maybe. It’s just me and my step-dad, anyway, and he’s out of town until Friday. I guess I’ll have to deal with it then.”

“Deal with what then?”

MJ shrugs evasively. “Just, you know, the whole protective dad thing.”

It occurs to Peter suddenly that he really doesn’t know much about her. Well, _MJ_ he knows; she likes Buzzfeed Unsolved and true crime documentaries, she never goes anywhere without a book, her favourite poet is John Keats and she eats an orange every day at lunch.

But how she _became_ MJ, _why_ it’s just her and her step-dad… he doesn’t have a clue.

And now she knows about Spider-Man and his weird relationship with Tony he can’t quite define.

Not Uncle Ben though, his mind whispers darkly. Not his parents, not those strange indistinct childhood days that are tinged through a golden yellow lense. She doesn’t know _everything._

He wonders, would it bother him if she did?

“Are you okay?”

“Boh,” Peter says.

“Fair.”

He falls back against the bed, but she stays sitting up, playing with his fingers. “It’s okay, you know. To not be okay, I mean. No one expects you to have everything worked out, Peter.”

He closes his eyes. “Feels like they do.”

“They don’t,” she assures him. “ _I_ don’t, anyway. And I know Ned doesn’t.”

He’s suddenly crushed with both immense guilt and affection. What the hell did he do to deserve them?

Peter staves it off by pulling her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles again.

“Is that something you’re gonna do all the time?”

He stills. “Do you not like it? Because you can tell me if I’m doing things you don’t like.”

He’s never done this before, been in a relationship. He’d had one disastrous date with Liz Allen that ended in him getting her dad arrested. With MJ it’s mind-blowingly easy, or at least a hell of a lot less harder than he thought it would be, and he thinks it’s because they were friends first.

But MJ doesn’t pull her hand anyway. “No, I… I like it.”

Peter relaxes. “Cool.”

MJ smiles. “Cool.”

They fall silent. MJ glances around and picks up the stuffed planet Jupiter toy Morgan must have left in here. “Yours?”

“Morgan’s.”

He’d bought them for her on her fifth birthday. She and Pepper had come over for dinner at Happy’s suggestion and then Morgan had ended up falling asleep in the middle of a galaxy, clutching Mars to her chest and doing that half-snore thing that had transported him right back to afternoons in Tony’s lab.

“So she’s sort of like your little sister, huh?”

Peter shrugs. “She grows on you. It’s kind of impossible to not love her.”

“And Tony Stark…”

“Fusses over me like an anxious mother? Yeah, you could say that.”

“Why does it have to be the mother fussing?”

“What?”

“Can’t it be the dad?”

“Of course it can,” Peter says with a grin, “but I associate fussing with Ned’s mom.”

MJ smirks. “She _is_ kind of unbearable.”

“I’m pretty sure she watches him when he sleeps.”

MJ snorts a laugh. Peter finds the sound sort of adorable. More than sort of, actually. He’d be happy to drown in the sound.

Peter sits up abruptly. “MJ?”

“Yeah?”

All the good things he wanted to say die on his tongue, because all he can think of is how he’d felt knowing Beck was after her, knowing _he’d_ done that. He’d been stupid, so stupid he’d almost gotten her killed.

So he says, “I know this isn’t what you signed up for. I mean, it was different before Beck exposed me. Now the entire world hates me and thinks I’m some evil villain and—”

MJ cuts him off by covering his mouth with her hand. “I’m gonna stop you right there, before you give me that lame martyr speech and tell me I’m better off without you, ‘cuz you’re wrong. Like, seriously, if I wanted normal I would’ve dated _Brad_. And the entire world _doesn’t_ hate you. There are still a lot of people defending you, posting ‘Peter Parker Saving Cats From Trees For Seven Whole Minutes’ videos, and like, _no one_ at school believes Beck.”

“Seriously?” He asks. “Do you watch those videos, by the way?”

“Of course. I watch all of them. And I leave angry comments in your defense on the stupid hate videos like a thirteen year old fangirl.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“That’s me schooling idiots with two brain cells,” she corrects, “for _you._ I’m bearing the brunt of the basement dweller patriarchy in your name, Parker.”

Peter kisses her. It still gives him a swooping feeling, like he’s riding the dip on a rollercoaster, and he wonders if that’ll ever go away.

“Thank you.”

MJ shrugs. “Whatever. By the way, if you ever try to break up with me again, I’ll be left with no choice but to kill you.”

“Yeah? How would you do it?”

“Arsenic, obviously,” she says. “But I’d do it when you were really sick already, and you’d already gone to the doctor and they’d told you it was a flu, so everyone would think it was just one of those anomalies.”

“The flu doesn’t kill you.”

“The flu killed 79,000 people the last time the CDC did a census,” MJ retorts.

“I love that you know that.”

MJ blushes and he can tell she’s trying not to smile. “Jokes on you though,” Peter says, “I don’t get sick.”

“ _Everyone_ gets sick.”

“Not people with genetically enhanced DNA,” Peter says. “One of the perks of being a literal wallflower.”

“Please stop.”

Peter grins. “So only you get to do the dumping, then?”

“Precisely.”

Peter’s face contorts with something like fond exasperation. He leans forward and kisses her cheek, and that’s when he hears the topmost step creak, and then May is knocking lightly on the door.   
  
  
  
“I hope I’m interrupting something.”

“ _May_.”

She smiles at him in that warm way that feels like home. It makes him sort of sick now though, knowing they won’t be going back to Queens together.   
  
  
  
“Can we talk for a minute?”

“Uh, sure—”

“I’ll just, um,” MJ stands hastily, “I’ll just go make sure Flash isn’t like, stealing anything.”

Then she ducks past May, who raises her eyebrows and shuts the door with her hip. She folds her arms across her chest, which means right now she’s bad cop.   
  
  
  
“Would you like to explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to hide the fact that you’d almost died?”

“I—” there are a thousand reasons, but they all shrivel up in his throat, suddenly insufficient. 

“May, I—”

She holds up her hand. “That was a rhetorical question, because there _is_ no good reason.”   
  
  
  
He looks away, feeling suddenly sick. And that’s when May drops the intimidating act and ends up kneeling in front of him, taking his hands in her own. “Baby,” she whispers, voice shaking, “you are all that I have left, you know? My only family. I love you _so much_ , okay? Which is why it would hurt me beyond belief to lose you. I _can’t_ lose you to this.” 

  
  
He knows. He knows that May loves him, that she always did; that she took him in and looked after him even though they weren’t blood, and for the first six months after Ben’s death he hid his nightmares and starved away his guilt and masked his confusion, because _it was his fault, so why was she still keeping him around?_

  
May had cried when he’d finally confessed the reason behind his sunken cheeks and dull eyes. She’d cried harder than he’d ever seen, even when Ben died, like her body was breaking in half and someone had taken away all the air.   
  
  
She’s the most important thing in the world to him.   
  
  
He couldn’t live with himself if he hurt her like that, if he left her all alone.   
  
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, but it’s not enough, it doesn’t help justify what he did, it just makes him look like an upset little kid.   
  
  
May wipes her cheek dry without regard for the fact that she’s crying. “I need to know.”

“Need to know what?”

“If there’s—if there’s anything else. Like this. That you’ve been... been keeping from me. Is there anything else?”

He thinks, swallows back a choke, throat suddenly lined with dust and dirt; he remembers, his voice echoing, his heart pounding, the weight of the whole world so _heavy_ upon his shoulders, crushing and suffocating.   
  
  
  
_If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it._  
  
  
  
There’s a reason why he doesn’t tell her these things, a reason why he hides the worst of it: because it’s just the way things are. People do bad things for no reason, and he does good things just as carelessly, and he hides the consequences because nothing can be done. It happened, it’s over, he’s okay.   
  
  
  
She doesn’t need to be hurt like that. She doesn’t need the weight of the building on _her_ shoulders, too.   
  
  
  
So he says, “No.” 

May ducks her head. She knows he’s lying. He knows it, too. But she doesn’t press. Maybe because she can’t bring herself to, maybe because she’s afraid.   
  
  
  
“Okay,” she breathes. Then she meets his eyes and smiles, like sunshine and springtime and cookies with burnt edges. “I’m gonna be at Happy’s. Pepper has my number. If anything happens, I want you to call me, okay?”

Peter nods. A part of him doesn’t want her to go, but another part of him is glad; she’ll leave, and her questions will go with her.   
  
  
If he’s willing to ignore the fact that she’s spending the night with Happy, she can ignore the fact that he almost died. They’re disasters on par with one another, so.

May squeezes his hands one last time and then stands. 

“Hey, May?”

She drops by the door. “Yeah, honey?”

“I larb you.”

May laughs, shaky and relieved. “I larb you, too.” 

* * *

“Why did you give up EDITH?”

It’s the first thing Tony asks. He doesn’t even turn to look at the kid when he wanders into Tony’s garage.

Tony is staring, vacantly, at the computer screen. It’s long gone blank, but it doesn’t matter. Everything Tony had seen has been seared into the back of his mind.

Peter hesitates on the threshold. “I guess… I thought that’s what you’d want me to do. I’m never gonna be the next Iron Man, so…”

Tony finally turns around. Peter’s eyes widen for some reason, and in that same instant something cold hits the back of Tony’s hand, and—oh.

He was crying.

_Is_ crying.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to calm himself down, to even out his throbbing heartbeat with steady breaths.

“‘To the next _Tony Stark,’”_ he quotes. “ _Tony Stark,_ not Iron Man.”

Peter looks up from the floor. There’s a good ten feet between them but it feels like a lightyear.

“How many times have you saved the world?”

The question surprises Tony. “What?”

“You don’t even know, do you? You _died_ to save it, Tony. You died and it felt like the world _ended,_ and I couldn’t—” Peter takes a deep, shaky breath. “I’m not like you.”

“No,” Tony agrees, and Peter’s shoulders fall. “You’re better.”

“ _Tony—”_

“I gave you control of EDITH because in an end of the world scenario, you are the _only_ person I trust to make the right call,” Tony says, standing. “I gave you EDITH because I believe in you, because I know when you make a mistake, you don’t wallow in your own shit like I do, you fix what you broke and you move on.”

Peter shakes his head. “That’s not true. I wallow in my shit.”

Tony rolls his eyes. He places his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “‘To the next Tony Stark: _I trust you._ ’” 

Peter won’t look at him. His fingers are curled around the sleeve of Tony’s shirt, though, like a little kid. Tony can’t help but think of him as small, vulnerable, his to protect. “Did you... see? What happened with Beck in London?”

Tony closes his eyes. He counts to three. “Not just in London.”

The warehouse. The gravestone. Peter’s fear, Peter crawling away from Tony’s rotten, decayed corpse that clawed at him like it wanted to rip him apart. He saw it all as Beck imagined it to be, and now Tony doesn’t have to wonder what it was Peter dreamed about last night.

(and he knows with a sick certainty what he’ll see tonight: peter standing on the edge of the tracks, face frozen with terror; peter being _pushed_ ; the deafening uproar of a train and the way it had plowed into his body with a heart-stopping crunch)

“Peter,” he whispers, eyes burning, “you got hit by a _train_.” 

“Tony…”

“You’re giving me grey hairs, kid, you know that? I mean, god, how the _fuck_ did you survive that?” 

Peter wraps him up in a hug. “It sucked, but Happy was there and y’know, I healed up good, so...”

“Please stop telling me it’s okay.”

“But it _is_.” 

“It _isn’t_ ,” Tony insists. He needs him to understand. “You could’ve _died_ , kiddo. That isn’t even—that isn’t even close to okay, it’s not anywhere in the ballpark, it’s—”

“I know.”

For the first time, Peter’s voice cracks. He stops short and blinks at the ground, before looking back up at Tony. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, kid,” Tony shakes his head, “I don’t want you to be sorry. I just want you to be _safe_.” 

“I am safe. I feel safe with you.”

Tony suddenly forgets how to speak. He cradles the back of Peter’s head and just holds him, because it’s the only thing he can remember how to do. 

“Tony?”

“Yeah, Pete?” 

“Why did you do it? I mean— _how?”_

He doesn’t have to ask what the kid means. It’s a question that’s been running through his mind for the past three months, and where before there hadn’t been any solid answer, he finally realises now.

“Something some dorky kid from Queens told me once,” Tony says. “If I hadn’t done it, bad things would’ve happened, Peter, and it would’ve been my fault.”

“Maybe the dorky kid from Queens was just an idiot and you shouldn’t have listened to him,” Peter argues. “Maybe I needed you, and it fucking _hurt_ that you were gone? I—”

Peter chokes on a sob. Tony pulls the kid back into his arms. 

“I missed you, Tony.”

“God, I know. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about _everything_ , Pete. I’m sorry I pushed you away, and I’m sorry I made you feel like this.” He shakes his head, holds the kid a little tighter. _It’s not a hug, I’m just grabbing the door for ya. We’re not... we’re not there yet_. “I’m a monumental fuck up.”

“You’re not,” Peter insists. “I’m not mad at you, I promise.”

“You should be.”

“I’m _not_.” 

He’s looking up at him with a stubborn set jaw and hard eyes. Tony can hardly meet them. “Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? I comfort you? Because this whole see-saw thing we’ve got going on is giving me whip-lash—”

“Really? You’re gonna start deflecting? In the middle of our workshop moment?”

“You know what, Sass Bucket? I might just buy one of those harnesses they make so you can keep your kid on a leash. At least then I won’t go full silver-fox by your eighteenth birthday.”

“As if you haven’t already?”

Tony gasps, and yeah, they’re bickering with their arms around each other in the middle of his garage, and it might just be the happiest he’s ever been in years. 

“That’s just rude. I take offense to that. Oh and for the record, you’re wrong.”

“About what?”

Tony’s voice takes on a softer tone. “You’re the _bravest_ kid I’ve ever met, got it? There’s a reason I made you an Avenger, and it’s because there’s no one else I want to be the next me.”

Peter frowns. “Not even Morgan?”

“Morgan will be the next _you,”_ Tony says. “I hope, anyway.”

Peter melts into Tony, all of his tension falling away. Tony hadn’t even realised how much there was until he’s practically holding the kid up in his arms. He doesn’t mind, though. He’ll gladly hold him up as long as Peter needs.

After a little while, though, Peter draws back.

“You good, kiddo?”

Peter nods. He wipes his cheek hastily. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Tony kisses his forehead. That’s the second time he’s done it and this time Peter doesn’t even react, like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“Stark!”

Peter jumps in Tony’s arms. Fury is standing in the doorway of the garage, looking displeased as ever.

“The footage?”

Tony fishes the flash drive out of his pocket and tosses it to Fury. “Now go away, leave me in peace with my brood.”

Fury fingers the drive. “Some of the children are requesting to stay overnight. Hogan volunteered to drive them home.”

He doesn’t even wait for Tony’s OK before walking out.

Peter is biting his lip.

“Who?”

“Well, Ned, and um…”

“MJ?”

Peter blushes. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Uh. _No._ Did you think I hadn’t noticed what was going on there?”

Peter doesn’t even try to deny it. “She can sleep in Morgan’s room!” Peter suggests. “ _Come on,_ Tony, Ned and Harley are gonna be in my room with me anyway. Also, I’m kind of insulted you think I’d be gross enough to do anything like that here.”

“Oh, just _here_ is the problem?”

Peter goes red. “You’re killing me.”

“ _You’re_ killing _me._ Figures my kid only gets a girlfriend after I _die_ _.”_

“Just—please? Can they stay?”

Tony pretends to consider it some more. Really, when the kid puts it his way, it doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. Plus, he’s terrified Peter’s gonna end up going stir crazy after a while, so maybe this’ll help stave it off.

“Yeah, okay, whatever.”

“Yes! Thank you, thank you, _thank you!_ ”

* * *

Riva swivels around. “What the fuck?!”

Janice looks up from the files she’d been rifling through, which she tosses down carelessly at his stricken tone. 

“What? What is it?!”

“They disproved Beck’s claims,” Riva reports breathlessly. He feels like someone’s kicked him in the gut. Everything they’ve worked for, all of their carefully constructed plans have gone out the window. “Look—they released the entire clip of unedited footage.”

Janice’s face contorts with the disgust he feels. “Fuck. That fucking _bitch_.” 

“Yeah, I figure Potts is behind it. She’s also suing the Daily Bugle.”

She shakes her head, looking like she might actually vomit. “So now what do we do?”

And really, it’s as if the moment was designed by the gods of fate, because as soon as the question slips past her lips, his inbox dings with its usual pleasant notification chime.   
  
  
And god, do the words he reads bring a smile to his face.

Janice looks at him. “Fuck yeah. Let’s tear those bastards apart.”

Quinten won’t die in vain, Riva promises himself, but Peter Parker?

Peter Parker will. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what’s that? is that? shit going down??
> 
> this chapter was so talky and we’ve barely scratched the surface of tony’s Peter Stress,,,but up next we got a rlly cute sleepover and b o n d i n g t i m e z :)
> 
> also check out [this really cute lil doodle](https://cat-blouse.tumblr.com/post/186191555568/morgan-ends-up-falling-asleep-curled-up-on) @cat-blouse drew for this fic on tumblr??? what a god
> 
> (p.p.s., follow my black hole of a blog: @peter-stank)


	5. Chapter 5

V

MJ really doesn’t know what to make of all of it.

She’s not easily so disconcerted, but after the pandemonium the last couple of weeks have brought, it’s hard to wade out of the haze of shock.

She’s sitting in Tony Stark’s living room. Tony Stark who everyone thought was dead, who decidedly _isn’t_ dead; in fact he’s bustling around his kitchen cooking dinner.

Peter is with him. They’re talking in low tones as they prepare the food together. It’s a lot to unpack, that whole situation—their relationship, which MJ had half assumed was nonexistent for the longest time and then acquiesced must exist on _some level,_ like maybe Tony Stark visited the lab where Peter worked as an intern every once in a while and they breathed the same air as each other.

She hadn’t accounted for this reality; where Tony ruffles Peter’s hair and they laugh at each other’s snarky jokes and treat each other like they’re blood related.

It’s perplexing. It’s mind-boggling. And MJ pretends it’s not, keeps her nose tucked into her well-worn copy of _Time Regained,_ reads absolutely zero words and watches the Stark family in their most natural state: absolute and complete bedlam.

The boy named Harley Keener that bickers with Peter like they’re long lost brothers is on the floor, playing with an outdated Nintendo console that Ned had practically busted a nut over. They’ve taken to each other easily and they encourage the other’s gameplay even though they’re on opposite sides.

Pepper Potts has always been someone MJ sort of admired, in a peripheral sort of way. MJ was aware of her, aware that she was the CEO of one of the world’s most powerful companies and a _woman_ to boot, but she hadn’t followed her much.

She follows her now, watching as she floats around the house to pick up toys and books and whatever, and then eventually gravitates back to her haphazard setup at the little table in the reading nook, where she has her computer and a bunch of official looking papers to work on.

Then there’s Morgan Stark. She’s five, and loud, and reminds MJ too much of her little sister—who’s _older_ than her now, off at Perdue, going to parties and sleeping with girls and all that other lame shit MJ always thought she was above… until it was her _little sister_ doing those things _first._

They don’t even talk anymore.

It’s like MJ stayed dead.

She pretends to turn a page and then glances back up at Peter. He’s not… the same as he was before the blip. That Peter had been awkward and stammering and really, a flailing disaster.

Grief had done something to him. It had taken some piece of him. MJ understands that, because it’s happened to her too, but it still makes her sad.

Well, _made_ her sad, because Peter doesn’t seem to be grieving anymore. He throws back his head and laughs at some remark of Tony’s, which makes her stomach flip and always has.

She bites her nail. Stops. Remembers how long it had taken to kick that habit in the eighth grade.

He gets hurt a lot. That’s something that unnerves her, like, too much. It’s not like it’s surprising or anything; he’s a super-hero, it’s part of the gig, whatever—but it’s just _different_ now.

Before it had been Spider-Man getting thrown into brick walls and shot at and beaten to a pulp. She’d had her suspicions, but she wasn’t really sure enough to connect all of those injuries with _Peter—_ who wears too big sweaters and twitches in his seat and always waits for Flash to try to get the answer right in class first.

(Too big sweaters to hide his fucking _six pack_ )

The injuries were one of the things that gave her doubts. It would be like, breaking news: Spider-Man just got obliterated in an alleyway—and then the next day Peter shows up at school looking fine.

She hadn’t accounted for genetic enhancement. It’s weird to think about; to remember that he’s not completely human, that his DNA was altered and mutated and it probably _hurt._

If he has kids, will they crawl on walls and shoot webs too?

_Why_ is she concerning herself with Peter Parker’s non-existent children?

MJ’s phone buzzes. There’s a notification for the _Friends of Spiderman_ groupchat, which is literally just her and Ned now that Peter’s phone has been confiscated by secret government agents or whatever.

**chair-man:** _you’re staring_

MJ finds his gaze and sends him a murderous glare.

**fuck off:** _fuck off_

**chair-man:** _(wheeze)_

**fuck off:** _you’re not even laughing. i can see your face. it’s completely blank._

**chair-man:** _i wanna add harley to this gc_

**fuck off:** _i’ve spoken to him exactly once (1nce) ?_

**chair-man:** _yea but he’s so cool and he has the same problematic humor as u_

**fuck off:** _excuse me_

**fuck off:** _how is my humor_

**fuck off:** _problematic_

**chair-man:** _you joke about murder a lot_

**fuck off:** _so what i watch a lot of murder stuff_

**fuck off:** _at least my jokes aren’t tawdry_

**chair-man:** _i will pretend to know what that word means for the sake of our friendship_

**fuck off:** _what friendship_

**chair-man:** _mjjjjjjjjjj_

**chair-man:** _i’m adding him_

**fuck off:** _d u d e_

**chair-man:** _:)_

**chair-man added Harley Keener to this group**

MJ physically winces as Keener’s phone dings from across the room. The sound is like a dead weight dropping into her stomach and her blood goes cold. She doesn’t like strangers, she doesn’t like talking to people she doesn’t know. Maybe she should just leave the stupid chat.

**chair-man changed Harley Keener’s name to potato boi**

**potato boi:** _oh my god._

**potato boi:** _what. what is this fresh hell._

**chair-man:** _it’s a peter centric groupchat_

**potato boi:** _does he like,,,know about it?_

**chair-man:** _ye he’s in it but like the government wanted to steal all our fun so_

**potato boi:** _i c_

**chair-man:** _mj u disappeared_

**fuck off:** _don’t bother me i’m reading_

**potato boi:** _u r anger?_

**chair-man:** _you’ve been on the same page for ten minutes_

**fuck off:** _fuck off_

“You guys are all texting, aren’t you?”

MJ looks up just as she’s about to switch off her phone and finds Peter standing at the end of the couch holding Morgan and a bag of popcorn.

“No!” Ned blurts.

“Oh, most definitely,” Harley says, at exactly the same time.

MJ doesn’t say anything. She just sets her phone aside because she’s pretty sure they’re not supposed to be using them anyway. Or maybe Tony Stark has a super advanced and impenetrable firewall on his servers.

Who is she kidding? Of course he does.

Wordlessly she snags the popcorn. “Dinner’s gonna be a bit,” Peter tells her in explanation, but she doesn’t care. She’s hungry and she wants an excuse not to talk.

Morgan crawls off of Peter and slips tiredly to the floor, grabbing a pale pink blanket and wrapping it around herself. She watches Ned and Harley play video games with glassy eyes.

Every once in a while, she glances at MJ, and MJ tries to smile.

Apparently her pathetic attempts work because after a few minutes, Morgan wanders back over.

Peter has gone back over to Tony. There’s no one to save her.

“You’re pretty.”

MJ blinks. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Her lips quirk up a little into something less strained.

“Um… thanks.”

Morgan Stark tilts her head sleepily. “I like your hair.”

“I-I like yours too.”

Morgan beams happily. _She’s impossible not to love,_ Peter had said, and a part of MJ already agrees. She’s just too small and innocent and drowsy to feel awkward around.

“Can you braid it? Mommy and Petey are too busy and I want it to be curly like yours.”

Once MJ gets past the initial shock of _Peter knows how to braid hair?_ she manages a nod. Morgan hops onto the couch and squirms between MJ’s knees.

She sets to work.

* * *

It’s entirely too domestic—the kind Tony had chased for a good five years but never truly settled into, because it always felt like there was some missing piece.

It doesn’t feel that way now, with Peter standing next to him in the kitchen preparing a bowl of brownie batter ( _because I’m a baker, not a cook, Tony_ ). It feels like a weight’s been lifted from his chest, like even though everything is wrong with the world outside, here in this house, it’s okay.

Peter is rambling on about the suit he’d made on the way to London because Tony had asked, unable to get that little tid-bit out of his head.

There’s something different about Peter. He holds himself with a new confidence, doesn’t stumble over his words when he’s talking to Tony—unless, of course, he gets all overly excited and slips into Full Nerd Mode—and more than anything…

“Why’d you stop calling me ‘Mr Stark’?”

Peter pauses for a second, and then recovers. “Well, for one thing, you’re not my boss anymore. I mean, you’re retired now right? But we’re both Avengers which makes us the same rank. And I don’t know, I mean, I guess I’ve just been calling you Tony in my head for the last three months—talking to Harley all the time hasn’t helped the habit—and besides, you always _wanted_ me to call you Tony, so…”

There he is. Tony’s familiar, awkward little fidgeting nerd child.

“I can keep calling you ‘Mr Stark’ if you want.”

“Oh god, no,” Tony shakes his head. “I was just wondering, kid. Pass the basil?”

It goes on like that. They talk about little things instead, though, like how school is going. Apparently because of the ‘blip’, everyone had to start the semester over and retake their mid-terms. Peter tells him about the fundraisers and charity events he and May have been organising for the homeless and displaced, and wow, Tony really couldn’t be prouder of his kid.

(and whether he likes it or not, peter is _his;_ he had become _his_ in an abstract way during those five years, constantly echoing around tony’s brain and invading his dreams; he had become _his_ when morgan was born and tony realised it wasn’t quite the first time he’d felt that feeling—though then, in that sterile hospital room with a pink bundle in his arms, the feeling was unrestrained and wild and all-encompassing, love at first sight or so they call it; it wasn’t suppressed and pushed away and ignored this time, like it had always been before. it had washed over him with the force of a tidal wave. _oh,_ he’d thought, _so that’s why it hurts so much_.)

He’s so distracted by Peter that he doesn’t notice the havoc being wreaked in the living room until Pepper calls out a warning:

“Hey! No throwing planets in the house!”

_Throwing planets?_

All it once it crashes down upon him, like it was waiting, like sanity had only been hanging on by a thread. Tony drops the spoon he’s been using to stir the sauce. He can’t see the kitchen anymore. The world is a wash of rust-coloured skies and packed crimson dirt, and then a gilded fist is raised, and the phantom wound in Tony’s side _aches—_

“Tony?”

He’s on the floor. Peter is in front of him. Peter is here and fine and not crumbling into stardust.

Tony reaches for him without even thinking about it and pulls him into his arms. “Um,” Peter says, “okay.”

Despite the awkward angle Peter returns the embrace. His forehead is pressed against Tony’s pulse-point, he’s solid and warm and alive and safe in Tony’s arms.

Tony holds him and concentrates on evening his breaths, on sinking back down to planet Earth.

The other kids are still yelling in the living room. Tony can hear Morgan’s shrill voice and Harley’s maniacal laugh. It’s all very loud and very wonderful and Tony wouldn’t trade it for anything.

They sit like that for a few minutes and just breathe. It’s something they’d done a couple of times before, years and years ago, when Peter would have panic attacks at Tony’s. They would sit in silence and they would breathe, and then they would hunker down in Tony’s living room and have sci-fi movie marathons until they both forgot to be awkward.

Tony rests his cheek against Peter’s head. God, he missed this kid. Seeing him standing in Tony’s living room, looking pale and tired and run down but _alive,_ had been everything. What had he said? _Hey Underoos?_ And the kid had spiralled, just like Tony’s doing now.

God, they’re both messes.

“Oh shit,” Tony hisses suddenly, eyes flying open, “the sauce—”

“S’okay,” Peter squeezes him like he’s trying to hug him, “I turned the stove off when you fell.”

Tony relaxes. He leans back and sees that the kid’s brow is furrowed, like he’s thinking hard. Then something seems to dawn on him, a waning realisation, and he meets Tony’s eyes.

“You know, if it helps your PTSD any, I think it was more of a moon that Thanos threw at you.”

Tony can’t help laughing, and there’s an underscore of relief to the sound because _finally someone understands._ “Gee, thanks, I’m all better now.”

Peter bites his lip. “I didn’t think it would still bother you so much.”

There’s a certain kind of fear in his eyes that Tony immediately comprehends; he’s not just scared for Tony, he’s scared for himself, scared that the bad things will always be with him and that he’ll have to drag the ball and chain of his horrors around for the rest of his life.

Tony brushes Peter’s hair out of his eyes. “It doesn’t really go away,” he confesses. “It gets better, easier… but hell, kid, I still freak out about that wormhole every once in a while, you know?”

“That sucks.”

Tony grins a little. “Sure does, short-round, but like I said: it gets easier.”

“Tony? Are you okay?”

Pepper is leaning around the corner with a frown. She’s developed a sort of sixth sense about his episodes after all these years. 

_Is he okay?_

There’s been a lot of that question going around, Tony realises. “Yeah, Pep, I’m just—”

His right arm twitches suddenly. _Oh, great timing._

“Your arm?” she asks, coming closer. Pepper runs her fingers through his hair and like always, it keeps him from flipping out.

“Apparently.” Tony flexes it, rolling his shoulder. It gives another, slightly more violent jerk. “I’ll have to call Shuri.”

Peter lights up. “You know Shuri?”

“Jesus, kid, did you meet _everyone_ while I was gone, or what?”

* * *

Dinner goes smoothly. Before they eat, Tony jokingly asks if Harley wants to say grace, and so Harley ducks his head, clasps his hands, and says, “Grace.”

“Amazing,” Peter marvels.

“Sound the sweet how,” Harley tacks on with a shit eating grin.

“I hate you.”

After that, they all retreat into Peter’s room. Harley simply flops down onto his bed and scrolls through his phone, but Ned and MJ are still throwing Peter glances like they’ve never seen him before—which is exactly what he was afraid might happen.

MJ quickly excuses herself to the bathroom, which is when Ned decides to speak up. “So like… can we talk about your secret alter ego, Peter Stark?”

Peter looks up. “What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about? _Um._ Peter.”

“ _Nedward.”_

Ned rolls his eyes. He pulls the desk chair out and sits in it. “Listen, I’m your Guy in the Chair, right?”

“Yes. Literally.”

“So like, I’ve known about this stuff—Spider-Man, the missions, the bad guys, whatever, and it _sucks._ Like, I know it’s definitely not easy for you, of course, but being the one sitting on the sidelines hoping you don’t die all the time? Awful. Seriously. Not that it’s your fault, and I’d like, gladly worry myself into a coma for you—”

“Ned,” Peter urges, “you’re getting off track.”

“Right, yeah, so like, what I’m trying to say is: if I’ve been in this with you and then I come here and find out that not only is Tony Stark alive but he’s basically adopted you—”

“He has _not—”_

“And it’s mind-blowing enough for me, imagine what all of this is like for MJ, dude.”

Peter feels cold. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” Ned is clearly struggling to get his words out. “I’m just saying like, be aware and stuff, you know? Of like, how overwhelmed she might be. She was like, super adamant that we stay over because of how worried she is about you—also, she’s sent me like, ten texts about how scared she is one day you’ll throw up in your suit and choke or something—”

Harley sits up at that. “The mask can be removed, you know.”

“Yeah, but Peter is dumb.”

“Valid.”

“Dude, I’m _right_ _here._ ”

Ned sighs. “Peter… I don’t mean to make this about me, but like, I feel like there’s all this stuff I didn’t even know about you, and you’re my _best friend._ Like, it’s all awesome and cool and everything, but it’s… a lot.”

Peter puts his face in his hands and massages his temples. It is a lot. It’s been a lot for him, too, adjusting to living with Tony Stark and rehashing his drama with Mysterio, but…

“MJ and I talked.”

Ned stares at him for a minute. Then he pulls out his phone with a sigh. He finds what he’s looking for and shows it to Peter.

**mrs spooder:** _just keep him distracted or whatever_

**mrs spooder:** _i think i feel a panic attack coming on so_

**mrs spooder:** _imma just dip into the bathroom_

Peter doesn’t even bother to read Ned’s reply. He’s on his feet in an instant, striding over to the bathroom door and knocking swiftly.

“I’m almost done, Ned,” comes MJ’s muffled, shaky reply.

“It’s Peter. Can… can I come in?”

He wouldn’t normally ask, but given the situation he figures she’s not actually doing anything in there other than sitting on the floor.

There’s a short pause where Peter’s heart climbs into his throat and his hands start to shake. He’s very aware of Ned and Harley’s forced conversation about the Legend of Zelda in the background, but Peter tunes them out.

“Okay.”

The door isn’t locked. Peter ducks inside.

She’s not on the floor. She’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub and her eyes are rimmed with red, cheeks shiny, knee bouncing, _shattered._

“Ned is such a snitch.”

Instead of sitting beside her, Peter lowers himself into the empty bathtub.

“Dork,” she mutters with an eye roll, but she sinks down to sit opposite him anyway.

“I hate to ask…”

“So don’t.”

Peter smiles. So does she.

“Are you okay?”

“It should be illegal to even utter those words anymore,” MJ proclaims. “I don’t think anyone in this house is okay.”

“That’s probably true.”

MJ narrows her eyes at him. “You’re different here.”

“I know it seems that way sometimes,” he agrees. “But… I’m still just me.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And who is that?”

Peter bites his lip and then throws out his hand for her to shake. “Hi, I’m Peter Parker, sixteen, my best friend’s name is Ned Leeds and I live with my aunt in Queens. I’m also on a kick ass decathlon team and our captain scares the shit out of me but I really, really like her.”

MJ blushes. She shakes his hand. “I’m immune to flattery.”

“Hi, immune to flattery, it’s nice to meet you.” MJ snorts, so he amends his awful dad joke. “I wasn’t flattering, I was just stating facts.”

She shifts to rest her cheek against the porcelain rim of the tub. She looks tired, and Peter is overcome by a sudden wave of blinding guilt.

“Do you want to go home? Because we can call Happy, and—”

She surges forward and envelopes him in her arms before he can even finish. “I don’t wanna go home. I just needed a minute to let it all out. It’s not even all about you, it’s…”

“London?”

MJ nods. “But it’s better. When I’m with you. I mean, when I know that you’re not, like, dying or whatever.”

She glares at him warningly, like it’s no big deal and she’s _not_ practically in his lap or anything.

“Right. You’re just…”

“A concerned citizen,” MJ supplies. “With a perfectly normal, regular amount of anxiety about what you do.”

“Totally.”

MJ looks down. Picks at her nails. Looks up at him again. Then she leans forward and kisses his cheek softly.

“Thank you. For your concern.”

Peter grins. “Thank you for yours.”

The door rattles with a series of incessant knocks. “Hey losers!” Harley calls. “Are you done suckin’ face yet? ‘Cuz Ned found a torrent for that new movie about Bruce Banner and if you’re not out in five seconds, we’re watching it without you.”

Peter and MJ both scramble to their feet in the same instant.

* * *

MJ ends up wedged between Peter and Ned on the barely full-sized mattress. Keener is pressed against the wall with his head resting on Peter’s shoulder and his arms around his stomach, like they haven’t been bickering on and off all day.

MJ’s never had brothers, but she imagines that’s probably close to what it’s like.

The movie is a total dud. Like, awful CGI, low budget, horrible acting and a completely nonsensical plot; it’s following one of those theories from 4Chan about where Bruce Banner was in-between Sokovia and the battle with Thanos—and it’s so bad they laugh through the whole thing.

At two in the morning, Pepper Potts ducks her head into the room. “You guys should probably get to sleep,” she says quietly. “Happy will be here at noon to pick you up, okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” Harley and Peter say together. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Pepper rolls her eyes fondly and closes the door with a soft laugh MJ barely catches.

They shuffle around in silence after that. Ned insists on letting MJ sleep on the trundle, and even if she’s not down with demanding chivalry from men, she accepts the offer because her head aches.

Peter rolls out a sleeping bag for him and gives up his pillow, and then they do their dorky little handshake.

Peter has a way of doing that, she’s noticed; evening out his affections so no one feels left out. He let Keener use him as a human pillow the whole movie, but he also held MJ’s hand and wrapped his ankle around Ned’s.

She kind of loves that, but doesn’t let herself dwell on the warm burning in her chest for too long.

Keener orders the AI system to cut the lights and then they’re bathed in darkness. MJ keeps her eyes open, staring at the vacant space beneath Peter’s bed and watching the mattress dip as he climbs up next to Harley.

After a while, Ned starts snoring.

MJ tries to keep her mind blank. She’s not tired and she knows if she lets her thoughts run she’ll just worry herself into another panic attack—like the first one hadn’t been embarrassing enough.

The logical part of her brain whispers that if she doesn’t judge Peter for his anxiety, he won’t judge her for her own.

Fuck, he wouldn’t either way _._

MJ kind of wants to hold his hand, but that’s so lame. She kind of also wishes she were in Keener’s place, but that’s even lamer and like, they’ve only been dating a week and a half.

She rolls over, disgruntled that her entire day has been spent obsessing over a boy. She almost wants to call Betty and have an aggressive conversation about literally _anything else_ because this day _so_ hasn’t passed the Bechdel test.

At three in the morning, she gives into the urge and checks her phone, careful to keep the brightness low. No one is active on any social media. Betty is probably asleep. Betty, who’s living her best life with no boyfriend and probably spent _her_ day hanging out with Cindy and Sally taking pretty photos to post on Instagram.

MJ’s life has never fit into an aesthetic. She’s never seen the value in posting a picture of a Starbucks cup and burying it in filters and grain effects just so it would look edgy and cool.

“What are you doing?”

Peter is leaning over the bed, looking not at all drowsy.

“Having an existential crisis at three-thirty AM,” she reports. “What about you?”

“Same.”

MJ turns her phone off and rolls over to look at him. His hair is falling into his eyes. She’s always thought that was cute. “Wanna hear something that’ll make you feel a thousand times better?”

“Absolutely.”

“Flash posted a two hour video on his channel a bit ago that denounces the claim that you killed Beck. It has ten million views.”

“ _What?_ Are you sure?”

“Yeah. He rants for a whole hundred and twenty minutes about what a hero you are and how badass you are and he even inserted clips of you saving people and stuff. It’s called ‘In Defense of Penis Parker.’”

She doesn’t know the whole extent of it, just what she’d seen when she scrolled through, but it seemed pretty well put together.

Peter chews on that for a minute. “I think watching that would have the same effect on my brain as an actual acid trip.”

MJ snorts. “Probably.”

Peter perks up suddenly. He frowns like he’s listening for something she can’t hear—which is probably true, she thinks, remembering what Ned had told her about his heightened senses.

“Peter?”

“Hold on a sec,” he whispers, and slips off the bed with an agility that still sort of blows her mind, because yeah, it’s cool, but also she’s mostly used to a fumbling and awkward Peter, not the guy that makes no sound as he hurries across the room and opens the bathroom door.

MJ scurries to her feet and follows him.

“FRIDAY, lights at twenty percent,” Peter orders as he slips into Morgan Stark’s bedroom.

Everything is explained when MJ sees the little girl thrashing around in her bed and crying in her sleep.

Peter kneels down and gently shakes her awake.

Morgan’s eyes open and the first thing she does is sob. Peter seems ready for it, though, and mutters to her quietly. His voice seems to calm her down. She relaxes against the pillows and lets him wipe her face dry with the blanket, blinking miserably.

“Saw daddy,” she croaks.

“Yeah?”

Morgan nods. “Was bad. I kep’ lookin’ for him but I couldn’ find him and everybody was wearing black again and—” she starts to cry some more, “I didn’ know where he was anymore.”

Peter pulls her into his arms and kisses the top of her head. “You want me to get daddy?”

Morgan shakes her head. “Sleepin’” she mumbles, and grabs Peter’s shirt instead.

“He wouldn’t mind, Mongoose.”

“S’fine,” Morgan whispers.

MJ finally ends her petrified silence, still standing by the door, watching with fascination and having _thoughts_ she doesn’t want to have, gross maternal thoughts she blames purely on her biological makeup.

Yeah, Peter would make a great dad, but who cares? It’s whatever. She’s sixteen. They’ve been dating a _week._ Her hormones can suck her dick.

But she still throws out the words, “You can sleep with us.”

Morgan Stark lights up. “Really?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Peter agrees, sending her look that’s filled with gratitude. “That’ll be fun, huh?”

Morgan practically starts vibrating with anticipation. “Yeah!” She squeaks. “ _Both_ of you?”

MJ comprehends her meaning before Peter does. “Uh, yeah. We can all fit on the trundle. I think.”

They do, with some shifting and struggling. With Morgan there, lying next to Peter isn’t really that awkward. It’s just a little cramped and close and he smells like laundry detergent or something, a pleasant but mild scent.

She’s done for. It’s not even funny anymore. It never _was_ funny. It was always gross. Now it’s even more gross.

Peter lets Morgan crawl all over him and finally find a comfortable position, like a dog digging a bed. She eventually flops down on his chest and nuzzles into the crook of his neck.

“G’night, MJ,” Morgan whispers.

“Goodnight, Morgan.”

“Goodnight,” Peter adds, “Mrs Spooder.”

MJ doesn’t hesitate to punch his arm. Hard. He has the decency to at least pretend it hurts.

He’s still smiling when his eyes flutter closed and like an obsessed, insomniac idiot she just stares at him.

Peter Parker bakes brownies. Peter Parker braids hair. Peter Parker dons a red spandex suit after decathlon meets and rescues cats from trees. Peter Parker saves, and protects, and holds Morgan Stark in his arms like he’d jump in front of a bullet for her, like he’d snatch her the moon out of the sky if it would make her happy; he’s gentle, kind, soft.

It’s worth it, MJ decides. All of it, the worry and the pain and the stress. It’s all worth it.

“Hey Petey?”

“ _Mmmm?”_

“I love you,” Morgan whispers.

MJ watches Peter freeze, but it’s only for a millisecond. “I-I love you too, kiddo.”

“Three-thousand?”

“ _Five-_ thousand,” Peter corrects.

The sun rises against the darkness of the night, and the shadows fade away.

* * *

**4:15 AM - peter parkour added Shuri to this conversation**

**Shuri:** _OH MY GOD_

**Shuri:** _WHAT IS THIS_

**Shuri:** _WHERE AM I_

**Shuri:** _H E L L O ????_

Tony grins and turns the phone off before setting it against the tissue paper in the little box with the red bow on top.

He carries it over to the car.

Tomorrow is going to be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i’d like to thank ned leeds for existing and all of you for reading this whack ass piece of shit <3


	6. Chapter 6

VI

Tony leans against the doorframe, idly sipping from a cup of straight black coffee. He observes, somewhat casually, the scene before him: 

Harley starfished on Peter’s bed, face tucked underneath a pillow; Ned Leeds curled up in a ball on the floor, half in his sleeping bag and half out of it, his mouth hanging open as his snores slice through the tranquility of the morning. 

Lastly, Peter and MJ, sleeping together on the trundle. 

Tony had actually been glad to find them there, because his heart had almost stopped when he’d opened Morgan’s bedroom door to find her gone. 

But here she is, nestled against Peter and sleeping soundly. _Thank god._

Tony takes another sip of his coffee and Peter, being the light sleeper that he is, slowly opens his eyes. He rubs them as he sits up, blearily eyeing Tony. The tips of his ears redden. “Um...”

Tony shakes his head. He gestures for Peter to follow him and walks away from the room. Peter slips away from Morgan and MJ and hurries to follow.

“You got that, right, FRI?”

FRIDAY hums in his ear. “Of course, Boss.”

Tony nods as he leans against the banister at the top of the stairs. He sips from a now empty cup, because appearances are everything. 

“You used my daughter as a human loophole to sleep with your girlfriend?”

Peter blushes. “That wasn’t—I didn’t—we were just—”

“Oh do tell, I’m simply fascinated.” 

“Morgan had a nightmare,” Peter scrambles to explain. “And it wasn’t even _my_ idea, but she just got so excited when MJ suggested it and… you’re not actually mad, are you?”

Tony smirks. “Come on, follow me. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

He leads him downstairs and outside. The morning is cool and crisp, shrill bird songs carrying across the property and fuck, since when does he care about birds? Is he gonna be one of those old men that stand on their front porches in a pair of suspenders, marking bluejay sightings in a little red book? 

Tony pushes the thought away, because it’s just disgusting all around. As he approaches the garage a thin panel slides away, right at his eye level. The light flashes green as his retinal scan completes successfully. The doors swing open. 

Tony looks over his shoulder to catch the kid’s approval as they enter the garage. 

It’s about half the size of an airplane hangar, large enough to accommodate all of his cars and equipment. Tony’s divided it roughly in half; mechanics on one side, tech on the other. Rescue Mark III lies dissembled across a workbench, beside the blueprints for a new and improved set of leg braces for Rhodey. 

“Holy shit,” Peter breathes.

“You like?”

“This is so cool!” Peter bursts, and it’s like just for a second nothing has changed, no time has passed. The bad guys didn’t come for them, five years didn’t stretch them thin, and Peter’s eyes still hold that innocent, excited spark. 

Tony scoops up an earpiece from the chrome counter top and hands it over. “Here, I configured Karen into the comms. You can chat at your leisure.”

Peter blinks. He inserts the earpiece. “Karen?”

Tony isn’t wired into their frequency, so he can’t hear her reply, but Peter grins. 

“That’s not all, folks,” Tony says. He gestures to the least glamorous car in the lineup; a beat to shit 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder. The paint is chipped, the detailing dented and dull, the engine totally shot. It’ll be a great project for them to work on together until the whole house arrest thing blows over. 

Peter slowly approaches. He spots the gift-wrapped box, first, frowning as he pulls the ribbon loose. Inside is a top of the line StarkPhone. Tony has already uploaded all of Peter’s data.

“It’s brand new, just for you,” Tony says casually, leaning against the car behind him. “I tinkered a little with the security systems, though, so you shouldn’t have to worry about hacking or being tracked. It’s safe to use as far as I’m concerned.”

Peter seems stunned. “Does Fury know?”

“No,” Tony says, “and we’re _definitely_ not gonna tell him, are we?”

“I—Tony, I can’t…”

“What, use it? Uh, wrong. I saw your old phone. No kid of mine is gonna be walking around with a cracked Android. That’s just preposterous. Please, take it, for my sake.”

“But—”

“What was that? Was that a ‘but’? Unacceptable. Un-but.”

“Dude—”

Tony clutches his chest, “I feel the heart attack coming on—kid, _please,_ you’re killing me...”

“Oh my god, _fine.”_

Tony sags with exaggerated relief. “Close call, there. So what do you think of the car?”

Peter tilts his head. “I mean, it’s a little…”

“Exactly,” Tony rounds the hood. “We’re gonna fix it up while you’re here, just you and me.”

Peter perks up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’ll need something to drive once all of this is over, anyway. Can’t have Spider-Man showing up to school in a beat up Pinto.”

Tony reminds himself that a) Peter doesn’t even have his license yet, and b) Happy drives him to school anyway so _that_ excuse for spoiling the kid sort of falls moot, and c) they don’t even know if Peter will be able to go to school anymore. 

Peter hasn’t spoken yet. He seems to have short circuited. Tony waves a hand in front of his face. “Kid?”

“I’m sorry,” Peter squeezes his eyes shut, “it sounded like you were implying this is… _my_ car?”

“Well, I mean, _car_ is a bit of a stretch right now, it’s more like a useless hunk of junk, but yeah. When we’re done. What do you think?”

Peter shakes his head. “I… _what?”_

“Something wrong? Do you not like red? Because we can redo the paint job however you like—

“Tony,” Peter cuts in, finally looking at him with wide eyes, “you _bought me a car?”_

“Yeah, kid, we’ve been over this, catch up. Anyway, I was thinking maybe black, but—”

“Tony!”

“What? _What?_ This is good! Why do you look like you’re dying?!” Tony studies Peter. “You’re not dying, are you? Do you feel okay? Do you have a fever?”

He presses his hand to Peter’s forehead, but his temperature seems normal enough. 

Peter wriggles out of his grip. “You can’t just—I can’t—this is _too much!”_

“What’s too much?”

“The car! The phone!” Peter presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and takes a few breaths. “I don’t… you didn’t have to do this, Tony, really, I mean—”

Tony reaches for Peter. “Kid,” he says, grabbing him by the shoulders, “I built you a multi million dollar suit and you’re freaking out about a car?”

“That was different,” Peter insists. “That was work, it was Spider-Man—”

“You talk about him like he’s an entirely different entity,” Tony remarks.

“Yeah, well—that’s not the _point._ I can’t accept this, Tony, seriously. I don’t deserve—”

“Pause.” 

Peter’s mouth clamps shut. His eyes are still on the car, so Tony places his hands on either side of Peter’s face and makes him look up. 

“You just saved the world. You saved thousands of lives by stopping Beck, and didn’t have me to swoop in and help you out this time. You did it _on your own._ I think you deserve a lot more than a beat up car and a phone, kid, but hey, that’s just me. And besides, you’re gonna help me fix it up, right? Which means you’re working for it, and—”

Peter cuts him off with a hug. It’s sudden and a little startling but Tony relaxes into it, holding the kid close. “ _Thank you,”_ Peter whispers. 

“Don’t thank me yet,” Tony warns. “You might wanna check your phone.”

* * *

When MJ wakes up, Peter is gone. 

Morgan has rolled over onto her belly and she’s lying halfway under the bed, so MJ gently pulls her out and then hauls herself off the trundle. 

Ned is sitting up in his sleeping bag staring at his phone. When he sees that MJ is awake, he waves her over. “Dude, there’s a Shuri in our groupchat now.”

MJ only knows of one Shuri—the Princess of Wakanda, whose existence was only a recently disclosed thing prior to the Snap. She’s an engineering genius and an Avenger to boot.   
  
  
  
“Who added her?”

“Peter, apparently,” Ned says. He shows her the texts—all caps, confused, sort of funny—and then scans his screen like he still isn’t sure he’s really seeing what he’s seeing. “Do you think it’s like, _the_ Shuri?”

“I don’t know,” MJ says doubtfully.

“No, dude, think about it,” Ned presses, “isn’t it possible he like, knows her? Like they’re both Avengers and they’d travel in the same circles and stuff, right?” 

She’d doubted he knew Tony Stark, once. MJ isn’t every inclined to doubt him again, so she says, “Yeah, maybe.”

“I swear, if he knew actual _royalty_ this whole time and didn’t tell me, I’m gonna have to rip his arm off or something.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around,” MJ mutters dryly, even though she doubts Ned could even poke Peter with malicious intent, much less dismember him. “Where’d Keener go, anyway?”

The bed is empty, leaving just them and Morgan in the small, slightly stuffy room together. 

Ned shrugs. “Maybe he’s with Peter?”

They end up finding him downstairs instead, sitting at the kitchen table with Pepper Potts and eating a bowl of fresh chopped fruit. MJ awkwardly stands in the entryway with Ned, both of them having washed up as best they could. Pepper had laid out some of her clothes for MJ to wear, which is both cool and weird at the same time. 

It hadn’t stopped her from stealing one of Peter’s shirts to wear instead, though. 

“Hey, guys,” Pepper greets brightly. “Did you want something to eat?”

MJ nods and accepts some of the fruit, but Ned declines with a strained, “I’m good,” like maybe he’s too strung up to even digest things properly. 

“Are you good, Nedward?” Keener asks. “You’re lookin’ a little peaky.”

Ned shrugs. Then he hastily pops a grape into his mouth so he doesn’t have to speak. 

Pepper makes idle conversation, asking MJ all those normal adult questions that always put her on edge like _how is school_ and _have you been thinking about college yet._ Only, unlike most adults, Pepper seems to get that she’s making MJ uncomfortable with that line of inquiry and instead, she pursues another; when MJ confesses her favourite subject is literature, Pepper starts asking her about what she’s read recently and which of Vonnegut’s novels she thinks is best. 

MJ finds herself loosening up significantly, because Pepper Potts is just one of those people; like May Parker, or… or MJ’s mom. She just has an easy, graceful energy. 

And she’s kind. Like, genuinely, in the same sort of way Peter is; she does her best not to poke and prod, respects the boundaries MJ tries to sketch, and smiles at all of the right times. 

It’s only when Morgan tumbles downstairs, rubbing her eyes sleepily and asking where Peter is, that Pepper finally frowns. 

“God,” she says, “they’re probably out in the garage. Stay here, sweetie, I’ll be right back.”

* * *

His phone, it turns out, is so blown up with messages and missed phone calls that the very _idea_ of sorting through any of it gives him a headache. The two things that peak his interest the most though are a couple of voicemails from Flash—which, really, what the hell—and texts from Shuri in the _Friends of Spider-Man_ chat Ned had created about two weeks ago. 

“You added her to FoS?”

“Yeah, figured you guys should catch her up to date before she stops by today.”

Peter frowns, absently passing the socket wrench into Tony’s hand before he even has to ask. It’s like muscle memory by this point. “And remind me: why can’t you just fix your arm yourself?”

Tony grunts as he loosens a particularly stubborn, rusty bolt. “Well, don’t tell anybody I said this, but Shuri? Her brain is like my brain on steroids. I understand maybe _half_ of the circuitry in my arm. It’s way advanced stuff, kid.”

Peter nods. Shuri is, by far, the smartest person he’s ever met. “I think it’s really mature that you can admit you’re dumber than someone else.”

“Shut up and hand me the pliers, Webster.”

Peter rolls his eyes but does as Tony asks. Deciding he’d rather not delve into his new phone and get lost in navigating its advanced software, he sets it aside and just focuses on the car. 

Tony works under the body while Peter screws around under the hood. He decides to replace the old car battery with a new one and then gets lost in the wiring, working mechanically through every problem, and in the process getting himself covered in grease. 

At some point, the garage opens and Pepper wanders in. She tries to yell at them over the blare of rock music—Tony had almost burst a blood vessel when Peter wasn’t able to correctly identify the band as _Led Zeppelin_ (he’d guessed AC/DC, just to fuck with him like always)—and in response, Tony asks FRIDAY to increase the volume by ten. 

Pepper squints, considers Tony for a long second, and then pulls out her tablet. She overrides FRIDAY’s system and the music cuts out. 

“Why?!”

“It’s _ten,”_ Pepper announces. “You’ve been in here for what—three hours? Four? God, look at the both of you, you’re _messes.”_

“Well we knew that already, Pep, there’s no need to go rubbing it in our faces.”

Pepper shakes her head. “Both of you shower. Everyone else has already eaten, but I suppose we can squeeze lunch in before the other kids have to go. Oh and Peter, I’ve scheduled a press conference for Friday, so—”

Peter drops his screwdriver. “I’m sorry, _what?”_

Pepper blinks. “Oh, hon, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” she says quickly. “Or you can come, but you don’t have to speak. It’s up to you. I just think it’s the best way to fully clear up all of this confusion, you know?”

Peter’s throat feels dry. He imagines a room full of people, hundreds of pairs of eyes all on him, waiting to hear his every word. _What is he supposed to say?_

“I, um… okay.”

“Are you sure? I can call it off, you know, or reschedule it if you feel like you’re not ready—”

“No it’s… it’s cool. Like you said, it’s the best way to… clarify everything.”

Pepper nods slowly, studying him. “I’ve done what I can already. We released your quotes from the debriefing to news outlets—just the ones about what happened in London and with Beck, nothing else—and really, there aren’t too many people who believed Beck to start with, just so you’re aware. New York really rallied behind you.”

Just to prove it, she pulls up a picture on her tablet. At first, Peter doesn’t really understand what he’s looking at, and then the pieces fall into place:

It’s a crowd of gathered people, holding picket signs and wearing shirts with Spider-Man logos, shouting at seemingly nothing. It’s like, a protest, or a Pro Spider-Man rally, or something. 

“Is this real?”

“Do you have reason to doubt me?” Pepper asks. She’s watching him carefully like she wants to see what he thinks. “The world knows you’re not evil, Peter. The press conference would just be a way for them all to… get to know you. _You_ you, not just Spider-Man.”

“So I’d go… without the mask?”

He’s used to standing up on stages in the suit, hiding his face from crowds, but this? 

“If you feel comfortable with that,” Tony says.

Peter bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t want to seem ungrateful. He knows they’ve done a lot for him. God, they gave him a room to sleep in, and Pepper has been slowly but surely constructing a heroic identity for the press to eat up, but… 

No. No, he can do this. He _has_ to do this.

“Yeah, okay.”

Tony and Pepper both smile at him. “Alrighty, then,” Pepper says. “Play time is over, back inside.”

* * *

**10:35 AM - Shuri changed her name to pussy cat**

**pussy cat:** _if i’m going to be here,,,floating aimlessly in this cursed abyss,,,i might as well fit in_

**pussy cat:** _also i can’t believe i’m being actively ghosted by four people at once what the fuck kind of a warm welcome is this_

**pussy cat:** _and moreover, whom the fuck decided it was a good idea to call this chat friends of spiderman when we all obviously HATE his dumbass i mean seriously_

**pussy cat:** _that was a joke husband i apologise_

**pussy cat changed the name of the chat to ‘josie and the pussycats’**

**pussy cat:** _fixed :)_

**peter parkour:** _no_

**peter parkour changed the name of the chat to ‘webster’s posse’**

**pussy cat:** _KSHSKDJ FUCK THAT’S REALLY THE SUPERIOUR NAME_

**pussy cat:** _ok not to be random but don’t blow my phone up from 11-2PM bc i have… t h i n g s happening_

**peter parkour:** _mmhmm_

**pussy cat:** _what?! you don’t believe i can be busy?!_

**pussy cat:** _i have a life!_

**peter parkour:** _uh huh_

**pussy cat:** _that’s it i’m filing for divorce,,,how dare u,,,also WHAT RHE FUCK U DO REALISE UR IDENTITY WAS EXPOSED THE OTHER DAH AND I THIUGHT YOU WERE DEAS_

**pussy cat:** _okay maybe not dead but ANSWER YOUR TEXTS NEXT TIME YOU FOOL WHITE BOY_

**pussy cat:** _i have so many fucking questions like whom the fuck is in this dank hole with us, and where r u, and what the fuck is going on_

**peter parkour:** _‘ “relax” - frankie ’ - wayne gretzky ~ michael scott_

**pussy cat:** _i went blind trying to decipher that also fuck u_

**peter parkour:** _:)_

* * *

Peter takes the quickest shower possible, but it’s still hard not to bask in the solitude it brings. For the first time in two days, he’s not being bombarded with questions or scrutinised like a zoo animal, and it feels good. He leans his head against the white tile wall and closes his eyes, breathing in steam while his skin flushes pink from the heat. 

_I can do this. I’m fine._

(but fine, for him, doesn’t really have meaning anymore; it’s just a series of phonetic sounds he uses to drown out all of the screaming in his brain, the memories, the voices: 

_people do bad things for no reason_

a gunshot, ripping through the air like its made of paper. peter winces and shivers like he’s there again, twelve years old and standing beneath a weeping sky, watching his uncle fall over and over and over again;

_if you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it_

one time may had read him this story about the greek titan, atlas, who had struggled to hold up the weight of the world for thousands of years.

peter suddenly finds himself on his knees, and the water from the broken pipes is running down his face, mingling with the salt of his tears, and the dust is coating his body like a second skin and—

_i’m fine_

_breathe_ )

* * *

Shuri is standing in his bedroom with her arms crossed.

“You know,” she deadpans.

“ _You_ know,” he counters automatically, tossing his towel away. 

They have a small stare off. Shuri can be intimidating when she wants to be, but Peter doesn’t balk. And just like he’d thought, she ends up plowing into him with the force of a thousand burning suns, causing him to smack his head on the door behind him.

“Ow, shit—”

“I’m so glad you’re not dead!” Shuri blabbers obliviously. “Also, I can't _believe_ you got outed by that hippie-looking ass, Peter, what the _fuck._ Have you no taste?”

Peter can only roll his eyes. “I can’t believe _you_ let me believe Tony Stark was dead for three months,” he counters. “Like, that’s an unforgivable offense. You’re on thin ice.”

“I signed an NDA.”

“Weak.”

“ _Peter,”_ Shuri pokes his cheek, “come on, remember last week when you _weren’t_ mad at me? Let’s go back to that, hm?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m always mad at you. We’re an estranged married couple, remember?”

Shuri takes it for what it is: forgiveness, because he knows if she’d been able to, she would’ve told him. He knows she was only doing what everyone else told her to do, and if the situation had been reversed and it was T’Challa who’d needed shelter and saving, he probably would’ve done the same thing. 

“How did you get here so fast, anyway?”

Shuri shrugs, stepping out of his way. “I came through one of Dr. Strange’s spinny portal things,” she explains. “I figured it was the best way to arrive unnoticed.”

Peter nods in agreement, but there’s still a piece of his brain that can’t quite believe he can be so casual about actual magical portals and a Wakandan princess in his bedroom— _his bedroom, in Tony Stark’s house._

He and Shuri have only been face to face two other times: once at Tony’s funeral, and before then, in the aftermath of the battle. She’d offhandedly quoted some dead Vine and gained his surprised attention. 

But he’d been too broken to laugh or even smile. He can still remember, vividly, what it’s like to live in a world without Tony Stark.

He doesn’t ever want to go back to it. 

When Peter opens his door, he finds that Ned, MJ, and Harley are all crowded outside of it. Ned blushes and stammers, embarrassed at being caught listening, but MJ just sends him a glare and scowls.

“Um.”

Shuri clears her throat. “I’m going to go—uh—fix an arm. Be back soon.”

She sprints down the stairs. 

“Yeah, I’m going with her,” Harley announces. “I’m _so_ not missing out on the opportunity to see Tony with _one arm.”_

Then he’s gone too. 

“Peter!” Ned hisses, as soon as they’re both out of earshot. “What is your _life,_ dude?!”

“It’s, uh…” Peter fidgets, feeling suddenly exposed and uncomfortable. 

“Crazy? Yeah, I agree.” Ned pushes past him, shaking his head in wonder. “Anyway, Happy’s almost here, so we should probably get going.”

All at once Peter doesn’t care that they were listening, and he doesn’t care about Shuri downstairs or the fact that she and Harley are both with Tony and he’s not. 

He just cares that in less than an hour, his two best friends will be gone, and he doesn’t know when he’s going to see them again after today. 

“Shit,” he whispers, closing his eyes. He’d wasted the _whole morning_ messing around with Tony in his garage; he’d left them to flounder for themselves in a house with people they don’t know. “I’m such an _asshole.”_

“What?” Ned asks, in unison with MJ who momentarily misplaces her angry demeanour. 

“Peter, what are you talking about?” Ned presses. 

“No, it’s-it’s nothing, I just… I wish I had more time with you guys, that’s all.”

Ned nods solemnly. “Well you have your phone now, so you can always call us and stuff.”

“Yeah, right,” Peter nods. He sits down on the edge of his bed. 

His best friend perches beside him in silent support. He puts his hand on Peter’s back. “Dude, I know you’re going through some shit right now, but can I just like, _sincerely_ thank you for giving me the number of a Wakandan princess? Like, holy shit.”

Peter laughs. “You’re welcome.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” MJ says suddenly. “Ned, could you give us a minute?”

Ned frowns. “I mean, I guess, but like, I don’t know if that’s allowed.”

“ _Ned.”_ MJ gives him her best _I could kill you a thousand different ways before you could even blink_ look, and so Ned shoots to his feet.

“Right, right, going, okay,” he stammers, scooping up his backpack. “I’ll be downstairs—”

MJ shuts the door before he can finish. 

“So... husband?”

Peter does a double take. “Uh, what?”

“That’s what she called you,” MJ explains. “Your, uh, friend. Shuri? You know, the actual royal princess with the superhero brother?”

She shifts awkwardly, but there’s a certain edge to her voice and she’s walking to him slowly like a pariah on the hunt and _yeah, she’s definitely mad._

“Okay, I realise what it sounds like—”

“Listen, I’m not about that whole possessive mindset,” MJ says, “like, if you want to see other people, whatever. You’re a human being, and like, if we can have more than one friend, why can’t we date more than one person, right? But I still think it’s the sort of thing I should know about, you know?”

All at once the ringing white noise in his brain fades away, and the answer clicks into place. 

“You’re jealous.”

“ _No,”_ MJ says, “I’m not, I’m just—”

“Jealous,” Peter finishes, grinning against his own will. “You’re jealous.”

“I’d have to like you to be jealous.”

“And you don’t?”

“Suddenly, not so much.”

Peter nods. He’s still smiling. “You think I secretly like Shuri?”

“Not secretly. I mean, it’s obvious she likes you and I don’t know, you _do_ seem to like her, and—”

“Yeah, I like her, but—”

MJ’s face falls just a touch, just as much as she lets it, before schooling back into something nonchalant. “Oh.”

Peter scrambles to explain. “MJ, no, she’s—”

“You don’t have to explain,” MJ blurts, and _shit,_ her voice is shaking, _fuck fuck fuck,_ “I get it, really—”

Peter stops her before she can open the door by planting himself in front of it. 

“Shuri only likes girls, MJ.”

All at once she stops. “I—what?”

“She’s _gay,”_ Peter repeats. 

A terrible amount of tension bleeds out of MJ’s shoulders. She blinks, silent and stupefied for all of five seconds. Then her arm twitches like she’s retraining a right hook, or maybe a stabbing motion sans knife, just to get the message across. 

She doesn’t do either of those things, though. Instead she falls forward a little, the top of her head pressed against his heart. “Thank god,” she mumbles. “All that stuff I said about open relationships and polyamory was total bullshit, by the way. If you ever cheat on me I won’t hesitate to castrate you.”

“Of course,” Peter nods sincerely. He gently pushes her hair across her shoulder, cradling her neck. “It really sucks that you think I would do something like that, though.”

MJ raises her head. Her cheeks are stained pink and her eyes are glassy. “Well, can you blame me? I mean, you hid like half of your entire life from everyone for _over a year,_ so like, obviously you’re good at keeping secrets, and—”

“Do you trust me?”

His hands are on either side of his face, his thumb gently swiping away a tear. MJ falters. “I…” she draws in a shaky breath. “Yeah. Fuck, Peter, I’m sorry.”

Peter shakes his head. “Don’t… you don’t need to feel bad. This one’s on me. I should’ve warned you beforehand.”

“You shouldn’t have to brief me on every little detail of your life,” MJ whispers. “It’s not right. I don’t want that.”

“Okay, true, but I still could’ve been better at trying to bring you guys into the whole _I’m a secret Avenger_ fold. I suddenly don’t think ripping the band aid off was the best approach to it.”

“I feel like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

_“No,_ but I’m socially awkward and I don’t know how to be someone’s girlfriend,” she argues. “I’m—I’m acting _insane.”_

“What are you talking about?”

MJ pulls away. “Are you kidding me?” she starts to pace. “I’m like, obsessed with you. Worrying about you all the time, thinking about you, talking about you—I can’t do that! It can’t be like that! And _you,_ well, I mean, you’re handling everything by pushing people away and only focusing on the superhero parts of your life because at least _they_ know what’s going on and don’t look at you like you have antlers growing out of your head, right?”

Peter opens and closes his mouth. “Have you considered a career in psychiatry?”

“There! See? Deflecting, just like May said!”

Peter sighs, but he doesn’t have the chance to argue because Pepper’s voice carries up the stairs, calling for MJ. 

She freezes, looking like the wind was knocked out of her. “I have to go.”

She sounds afraid and sorry and shaken, and Peter feels fucking awful. 

“Right.”

MJ grabs her backpack. She stuffs her phone in her pocket. Then she starts forward, but as she’s making for the door Peter grabs her arm as gently as he can. 

“I… did we just fight?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “I guess so, like, accidentally?”

Peter grapples with that. He tries to think of something to say, but his throat feels like the fucking Sahara desert. 

He settles for raising her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles. 

“I trust you,” he says. 

MJ blinks. “I trust you, too.”

“And I’m not secretly dating a lesbian,” Peter tacks on, feeling his heart stutter with hope when her lips quirk up. “And I’m so, so sorry for putting you through all this.”

MJ shakes her head, like it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever said, and leans up to kiss him. Peter falls into it, losing all sense of time and place, letting himself get lost the warmth, in the heat of her cheeks and her green apple shampoo. 

Someone calls her name again, though this time the voice is deeper and more disgruntled. 

“That’s Happy,” Peter warns. “You should probably—”

“Right,” MJ nods. “Yeah. So…”

“I’ll walk you down?”

She accepts his offer. Peter ignores the exasperated look Ned sends him when they walk out onto the front porch. He still gives Peter their secret handshake though and doesn’t hesitate to hug him. 

“Bye, dude,” he whispers. “Call me. Text me. Don’t forget to eat, and if you need anything, and I mean _anything,_ man—”

“I got it, thanks, mom.”

Ned scoffs. “So uncalled for,” he says, and then sighs, “but so very, very true.”

Peter laughs. Happy slips past them to start the car. The afternoon air is humid and wraps around them, sticky and unforgiving. It’s still summer, he reminds himself. There’s still time to figure everything out. 

MJ hovers by his side for a moment, glances at Pepper, and then plants a rushed kiss on Peter’s cheek. “Bye, loser.”

“Bye,” Peter says. 

Then Ned surprises them both by scooping them up into a bone-crushing hug. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Definitely,” Peter agrees, even though it sort of feels like the end of the world. 

Happy honks his car horn. “Hey! I don’t have all day, you know!”

Ned and MJ shoot him regretful looks before rushing off. “Hey Happy!” Peter calls.

“ _What?”_

“Tell May I said hi!”

Happy has the grace to blush.

* * *

He smooths out his suit jacket as he walks down the hallway. It’s dark in the sublevels of the tower. The shadows eat away at what little light fluorescent bulbs above over with their flickering candescence; it’s a dreary place, and damp to boot, but he perseveres onward regardless. 

He finds the place he’s looking for; a set of double doors with blacked out windows which he pushes open to stride easily inside.

The four of them sit around a table, upon which are scattered papers, open laptops, and a bowl of bright orange chips. 

“Any progress?”

Riva laughs. “You’ll never believe what those dumbasses just did,” he says gleefully, angling his screen to present a webpage.

_@Pepper_Potts: PRESS CONFERENCE on 7/15; 9AM. Further details TBA._  
  
  
“We’ve got em. Operation: Water Spout is totally ago. They’re fucked.”

“You’re certain?”

“Oh yeah,” Janice confirms. “Positive. What the hell else do you think you hired us for?

“Alright then. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Yeah, you got it, boss.” 

On his way out of the dimly lit room, Norman Osbon smiles. 

_Fucked,_ he thinks. _I like the sound of that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	7. Chapter 7

VII

**Flash Thompson: 2 missed calls; 2 unheard voicemails**

_‘Hey Penis, it’s Flash. I just wanted to say I can’t believe a total dork like you managed to pull this one off—not that you fooled me, I totally had my suspicions the whole time, obviously. All that stuff I said about liking Spider Man was just to trip you up, so… anyway. Um. Bye.’_

_‘Hey Pen—Peter, god, did you_ have _to hit me, Cindy? Hey. Peter. It’s me again. Flash. Obviously. I was just calling because I realised—ow, shit—because it was_ brought to my attention _that my last message might have been a bit, uh, rude. Or whatever. But like, I just wanted to say no hard feelings, at least on my part, and… I um… I think it’s really cool. What you do._

_‘Like, I don’t… my parents never… whatever. It doesn’t matter, it’s not important, but… I still think it’s cool that there’s someone like you looking out for the little guy. Also, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Tony Stark. It must’ve sucked to lose him. Anyway, yeah, uh… bye.’_

* * *

“Are you gonna be leaving soon?”

They’re perched on the end of the dock, minus their socks and shoes, pants rolled up to their shins. The sun is beaming down on the surface of the lake and it gleams and glitters with every ripple. Harley swings his feet back and forth like a little kid, but stills at the question.

“Me? Leaving? Never.”

Peter frowns. “You don’t mean that.”

“I beg to differ.”

“What about your mom? And Ariel?”

Harley shrugs. He tilts his head back to soak up the waning afternoon light. “Ariel’s still off at summer camp and mom…” his face twists. “She’s working three jobs now. Figure it’s best if she only has to look out for herself for a bit, y’know?”

Peter does. He knows about cheap takeout and power cuts and May bent over the kitchen table, re-reading an overdue statement for the third time like if she stares long enough the words will rearrange themselves. He knows what it’s like to feel guilty like that, to feel like a burden; like you’re dragging someone down just by breathing. 

Even if May never made him feel that way on purpose, he still wonders: what would have happened if she had survived the blip when he hadn’t? Would she have gone back to school? Gotten her doctorate? Moved into a studio apartment and adopted a cat, _finally,_ now that she didn’t have to live with someone who was allergic? 

Harley bumps their shoulders together. “Peter?”

“Hmm? I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Harley deadpans. “But I didn’t ask, so we don’t have to talk about it.”

Peter nods. He leans back and lies down. “How long do you think it’s gonna be like this?”

“Like what?”

“ _This.”_ Peter gestures around them. 

“I’d say we have a few million years at least before the sun impacts the earth, but in the event of an apocalypse—”

“Keener.”

Harley shoots him a grin over his shoulder. Then he lies down by Peter. “You don’t get it yet, do you?”

A cold feeling makes the marrow in his bones freeze. His stomach swoops. “Get what?” he asks, even though he knows perfectly well what Harley means.

“It’s never gonna go back to the way it was. Like, I hate to burst your bubble and all, but the entire world knows you’re Spider Man now. That makes you a celebrity, and since people associate you with Tony—who everyone thinks is dead, in case you forgot—the press is definitely _dying_ to sink their teeth into what you’ve been up to all this time. That means they’ll try to find out where you live, they’ll come to your school, they’ll track you all the time and ambush you on the street. It’s cold and hard, but it’s the truth.”

Peter swallows even though his mouth is dry. He’d figured all of that already, but he hadn’t wanted to entertain the thoughts too much. Now he can’t help it. They press against the walls of his psyche, unrelenting and dark. 

Tony had wanted to tell the world before, after Toomes; if he had, Peter would have moved into the Avengers Compound. He’d already been prepared for the reality Peter can’t quite grasp, the one where Peter is never left alone, the one where everyone knows who and what and where he is, _all of the time._

“Are you still breathing?”

Peter had forgotten to. His strained lungs thank him when he does, and Harley unwinds a bit. He props himself onto his elbow and looms over Peter. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just… someone has to tell you, right?”

“Right,” Peter nods. It’s true. Those are all things, he figures, Harley had overheard from Pepper and Tony. Whispered conversations, a shitty new reality they were trying to keep from him by using their lakeside home as a utopian oasis. 

He still doesn’t know how it all applies in regards to everything else. Like, where does he go to school? Should he try and brave Mid-Town, where everyone is _obsessed_ with Spider Man? Is living with May safe or does it put her in too much danger?

“I didn’t want this.”

“I know you didn’t.”

Peter looks at Harley and finds that his face is earnest, open, eyebrows beetled. It’s an expression he so rarely adopts, because even if Harley is loud and always laughing, he’s guarded too.

But not right now. Not when it’s just them.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Nobody expects you to,” his friend assures him. “This is all stuff Tony and Pepper are trying to figure out—”

“But they shouldn’t have to!”

Peter sits up so fast he almost whacks their foreheads together, but Harley backs off just in time. 

“It’s so messed up! Like, I made the decision to keep everything a secret because I just wanted a normal life, and now it’s all _ruined.”_

He had two lives, he realises. One as Peter Parker, junior at Mid-Town, chemistry whiz on the AcaDec team and certified loser; and he had Spider-Man, the Queens vigilante that saved lives and stopped car crashes and threw himself in the line of fire. Peter has a hard time connecting them both on his own. _You talk about Spider Man like he’s an entirely different entity,_ Tony had said earlier, and it’s been eating away at him for hours because it’s _true._

He doesn’t know how to fuse it all. It feels like two elements are trying to bond but their ions just aren’t covalent enough to coalesce, like two magnets clicking together instead of resisting polar charges. It’s just wrong. It’s against the laws of nature. 

“It doesn’t have to be ruined,” Harley says. “You just need to... rediscover your equilibrium.”

“My equilibrium?”

Harley snaps his fingers and grins. “I know _exactly_ what to do.” 

* * *

Peter thinks it’s a terrible idea, but Shuri latches on with wide eyes and a mad cackle and he knows he doesn’t actually have a choice in the matter, no matter what Harley wants to tell himself.

He’s arguing with the two of them about security risks and public backlash when Pepper overheard enough to gather the gist of what his two friends are planning. 

“That’s actually a brilliant idea,” she says, “and it would do wonders for PR.”

So he’s forced to film a ridiculous video with his friends. 

* * *

After, they sprawl out on Peter’s bedroom floor.  Well, Harley and Shuri are on the floor. Peter is hanging upside down on the ceiling. 

“You should’ve called yourself Bat Man instead,” Harley says. 

Peter takes a minute to reply, because all of the blood has rushed to his head and he feels heavy in the best sort of way. It’s hard to think like this. It quiets the yelling in his brain. 

“Bat Man sucks.”

He’d been a fan of the comics when he was a kid, before Tony Stark announced himself to the world as Iron Man. Then everything had changed. Superheroes roamed the real life streets and suddenly Bruce Wayne wasn’t so exciting anymore. 

Harley flashes him a lazy, lopsided grin. He’s positioned directly underneath Peter, eagle spread over the rug. 

Peter’s brain suddenly catches up with his heart.

“MJ and I had a fight.”

Shuri’s interest is finally caught and she perks up. “About?”

It takes Peter a minute to find the words. They’re lodged, sticky and hot, in his throat for a while. They burn as they spill out. 

“She thought I liked you. She was jealous, which is just...  _not_ MJ. I think I screwed everything up.”

“You told her I don’t play for your team, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So is she still mad?”

“No,” Peter says, “but that’s not the point. I don’t-I don’t care about what we fought about, it’s just like... all the stuff underneath I don’t understand.”

Harley squints. “The stuff underneath?”

“She’s worried about me. She said she’s thinking about me too much and she doesn’t like it, cuz she doesn’t want her entire world to revolve around me—which is great, and I get that—but like, I think we’re both coping in a really messed up way? Like she’s... detaching herself from the situation and trying to view everything objectively, maybe. And I’m...”

“Compartmentalising?” 

Peter’s gaze snaps to Shuri. He slowly lowers himself to her level and squints at her, upside down. “How do you figure?”

Shuri shrugs. “I can’t say I know you as well as she does obviously, but from what I can tell, you do that. Take little pieces of your life and put them in boxes, and you like, divide your attention between them. I can tell, because sometimes you pretend Spider Man is like, someone else’s life and you’re just along for the ride, you know? And there’s other stuff too. But my point is: you don’t like that all of these aspects of your life are overlapping and you’re not handling it well, clearly. You’re just focusing on what’s reliable, the things you  know you can depend on.”

Peter considers that. He’s been aware, on some level, that he hasn’t even bothered to  ask about when he can resume patrolling or return to Queens; there’s been so much going on, and it makes it hard to focus on anything at all, like the things that had been solid before are now wispy and shapeless things he can’t grasp. 

So he’d put Spider Man in a box. He’d put Queens in a box. He’d turned around and found that everything else was sprawled out and mixed together and a mess. 

“You might have a point.”

“Of course I have a point,” Shuri agrees. “I’m me. And might I just say, by the way, your girlfriend is way too hot for you.”

Harley snorts, but his amusement is short lived. “You are aware that all of this is normal, right? I mean, fighting is. Not like, your life. That shit is whack.”

“Of course I know fighting is normal,” Peter lies effortlessly, “it’s just... I _really_ like MJ, and the last thing I want to do is screw everything up, you know?”

“I think you’re overthinking it,” Harley says.

“I think you’re  under thinking it,” Shuri counters. 

“Great guys, thanks,” Peter says dismally. “Awesome advice.”

Shuri beams. “You’re welcome.”

* * *

Pain is an entity he carries around with him everywhere he goes. It’s something that has carved a place for itself in the centre of his heart; left a brand on his genetic code; coiled around his bones with thorns that scratch and scrape when he moves.

Tony _aches,_ all of the time. 

It’s something he lives with. It’s something he’s had to live with for over a decade of his life—nearly two now, actually. 

Chronic. Constant. Deeply rooted and vicious. 

His dreams only exacerbate it. In the day, Tony can distract himself so much he almost forgets to hurt. He buries himself in work and doesn’t come up until his lungs are straining for oxygen. 

At night, he’s strangled by it. 

The nightmares always start out vague; shadowy figures, voices that echo things back to him he’s tried to forget. It’s probably at this stage that he starts to sweat; when Howard Stark is looming over him and all the sudden he’s six, and his cheek aches from being hit, and the world smells like scotch and salt. 

_What are you doing, Anthony? Get the hell out of my office! Go, find your mother! I have work to do._

That’s surely closer to what he really said, but the words come out twisted, overlapping with something harsh and venomous:

_Get the fuck out, Anthony. I don’t want you here. Go bother someone who gives a fuck, huh?_

And then it’s him, he’s the tall one, saying those things to Morgan who just cries and cries and cries. That makes his chest ache and then, in a world of nebulous shadow, his ribs crack and his skin splits and bleeds and he _gapes,_ scarlet staining his shirt, shrapnel shredding his insides to bits. 

Tony falls to his knees. Dust kicks up. Stardust. Torn apart, _gone._ In his head it’s not just Peter, but Morgan too and maybe even Harley, spread and scattered and _ripped to shreds._

And Thanos is there. Thanos, with that fucking smug smile and _I am inevitable,_ and Tony thinks just for a split second maybe he is, because after everything he’s done, what’s to live for? Why go on? 

But he raises his hand and the pain, the waves of radiation that slowly start to desecrate him from the inside out; the lightening in his veins that boils his blood; the heat, the swooping feeling in his stomach and the sickening sensation that he’s falling—only he’s not, that’s just his organs being sloughed into soup as his body is fucking microwaved—

it _hurts._

He feels like a kid for just a split second and in that short lapse of time, the world takes on a golden glow, and he catches Jarvis’ eye in the rear view mirror of the old Cadillac, and his mother is laughing and her song is coming from _everywhere—_

He doesn’t want to be Iron Man. He doesn’t want to be the hero. He doesn’t want to breathe anymore, or fight, or save the world. 

He’s just so tired…

( _you need to wake up_ )

Then the battle fades away in a swirl of smoke and ash, and suddenly everything is dark. Tony turns around and there’s Peter, without his suit, beat to hell and bleeding. He’s scrambling away from Tony—only it’s _not him,_ because his body is deteriorated, putrified; his hands are grey, missing chunks of flesh to expose the bone beneath, and his armour is just a wrecked shell.

Peter is crying, begging, _please, Mr Stark, please Tony, please stop, please go away—_

And then he wakes up.

It happens all at once. In the space of a heartbeat, he’s asleep and then not. Tony’s eyes snap open and his breath catches, lodged in his throat. 

He sits up, soaked in sweat, hand clutching at the place where his arc reactor used to be. When he comes up empty he starts to panic, thinking maybe he really is dying, Obie stole it from him all over again, ripped his heart out—

“Breathe.”

Automatic. A reflex, buried deep in his subconscious, brought forth by the sound of Pepper’s voice. It’s soft and soothing and low.

She’s not touching him, but she’s leaning close, her hair a loose auburn curtain that she runs her fingers through to push away from her face. 

Tony gasps.

It’s so much all at once he almost passes out. He realises how his skin is searing and the blood vessels in his neck and forehead were bulging. 

Pepper gently lays a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey,” he rasps, after a few shaky minutes. He’s so wiped he can’t even think of a quip to make her laugh with. 

Pepper doesn’t mind. She rubs her hand up and down his back until he finds his equilibrium again and latches on for dear life. 

“Why don’t you shower?”

It’s five in the morning. They both know he won’t be going back to sleep. If he could, these days, he’d stay awake forever. 

* * *

The smell of coffee permeates the air. It’s warm and inviting and Tony gravitates toward it, already buzzing with the thought of caffeine. 

It’s not Pepper he finds in the kitchen though, it’s Rhodey. 

“Hey, Pep,” he throws over his shoulder, “I know it’s early, but I have a meeting at seven, so I thought I’d stop by to help with…”

It’s at this point that he’s turned around fully. The mug he was holding falls to the floor and shatters. 

“...breakfast,” he finishes lamely.

Tony swallows. 

He’s been back for two weeks. Two weeks and he still hadn’t gotten around to telling Rhodey. He’d wanted to first thing, but Pepper had been adamant about keeping a low profile, to which he’d replied _bullshit, he’s my brother,_ and then she’d killed all his hopes by informing him Rhodey wasn’t even in the US, he was overseas somewhere stationed in the Middle East on some top secret mission.

So he’d waited, and pestered Pepper, and complained, and then Peter had shown up and he’d just… forgotten.

“Hey Honeybear.”

“What the fuck.”

Tony can’t help it when his lips quirk up. That’s exactly what the kid had said too, and Happy. 

He stands there for a minute, glancing from the splattered coffee on the floor to Rhodey’s face and then back again. “You know, one of us should really clean that up ‘cuz this is Macassar ebony and Pepper’s gonna strangle me if it stains, so—”

“What.”

“No, you’re right, that was a lie. Pepper doesn’t care about the floor. It’s me, I care. Took me seven months to build this cabin and if I get wood rot I might actually die.”

Rhodey keeps staring. Then he shuts his eyes tight, pinches the bridge of his nose, and looks at Tony again. There’s something like desperation, like hope, like heartbreak layered into his gaze.

“You’re not dead,” Rhodey states, like he’s not so sure of the words but wants desperately to believe them. “I’m… I’m actually seeing you right now, right? This isn’t some crazy advanced projection or—you didn’t really build a life model of yourself, right—?”

Tony pulls Rhodey into his arms to cut off his spiel of disbelief. Rhodey is stiff for all of five seconds, drawn out ad infinitum to Tony, but then he hugs Tony back. Feels his heart beat. Relaxes. 

Tony kisses his cheek. 

“I’m here.”

“You’re here,” Rhodey repeats. 

They stay like that for a good few minutes, or maybe a century. Tony has a hard time keeping track. He just holds Rhodey and tries to pour all the things that get stuck in his throat into the embrace, like maybe Rhodey can absorb _I’m so fucking sorry, please forgive me, I would’ve told you sooner but I couldn’t, where were you, I needed you_ via osmosis.

Rhodey slowly pulls back. He just looks at Tony, like he’s seeing him for the first time; like Tony is fifteen again, all scrawny and knobby knees and a stuck up attitude that falters the minute his six foot tall roomie walks in, staring Tony down with all of his eighteen year old wisdom. 

“Man, you just can’t stay dead, can you?”

Tony sputters. “Is that disappointment I detect in your voice, Colonel Rhodes? If you want, I can finish the job right here, just pass me that kitchen knife—”

Rhodey shakes his head. He’s grinning and his eyes are shining with tears. 

“ _How?!”_

“A simple cut across a carotid artery would do it, I think.”

“ _Tony.”_ Seven minutes and he’s already exasperated. “ _How_ are you alive?!”

They end up moving over to the breakfast nook so Tony can explain everything. He tells Rhodey about his recovery in Wakanda; how for the first month his brain was so fried and hopped up on Extremis he couldn’t even remember his own name, how he’d struggled with the loss of his arm. He goes into a hell of a lot more detail this time, because Rhodey isn’t a sixteen year old kid, he’s Tony’s best friend. So he tells him about the break downs too, and the nightmares, and how he’d freaked out so bad once they’d had no other option than to put him in restraints and knock him out. 

Rhodey isn’t looking at him by the end of it.

“I know I fucked up,” Tony whispers, voice raspy from talking so much. “I let you and Pepper and Morgan and everyone else think I was dead, but Rhodey… for a little while there, I _was._ And I don’t just mean when my heart stopped. I mean… I had to figure it all out again first. Find Tony again.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “Jesus.”

Tony flinches. “I’m sorry.”

Then Rhodey grabs his hand. “No, man, I… I’m not upset. I mean, I am a little, but I’m just… scatterbrained right now. I know it’s not your fault, though.”

Tony feels his body crumble with relief, and like always Rhodey is there to catch him and pull him against his chest. Tony closes his eyes. “I missed you, Platypus.”

Rhodey laughs. The sound is a deep rumble against Tony’s side. “Yeah, right back at you, Mr Stank.”

“So what about the others?” Rhodey asks, when they’ve stopped crying like little girls. “Who else knows, I mean?”

“Well, Pepper, obviously, and Strange. He and T’Challa, Shuri—oh, and Happy, ‘cuz he had to bring the kid here, and Fury knows—”

“Woah, wait,” Rhodey holds up his hands. “The kid? You mean Peter?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Why?”

Rhodey shifts. “That’s actually what I came here to talk to Pepper about. You heard about his skirmish in London with that Mysterio guy?”

Tony nods. “Beck? Bug-eyed bastard couldn’t read a contract right and he took it out on the kid.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey smirks. “I thought he might be here. Thought I’d come by and see how he was doing. That and I wanted to see my favourite niece.”

Tony feels something settle in his chest, like a muscle he didn’t realise was straining finally relaxes. Rhodey had come here to look after his kids, and Happy had stepped up to help Peter in the Netherlands, and Pepper had taken him into her orbit of eight thousand and eleven things she was always dealing with. They’d all taken point while he’d been on some stupid Wakandan recovery retreat and—

“Hey, don’t do that, man.”

“Do what?”

Rhodey gives him a look. “You’re feeling bad because you weren’t here when shit hit the fan,” he assesses. “That’s bullshit. Plus, he handled himself good. Did you see the footage of him taking out all those drones? Blows my mind that kid’s only sixteen and he fights like _that.”_

Tony sighs. He leans back and folds his arms over his chest, because if he doesn’t his heart might burst through his sternum. “I saw.”

Rhodey’s face is searching now, like he’s trying to figure out just what’s going on underneath Tony’s stony expression. He doesn’t get the chance to poke and prod though, because the emergency phone Fury had handed him during the meeting the other day starts to ring. Tony scowls as he answers. 

“You’ve got Stark.”

“What the hell is this I’m hearing about a _press conference?”_

“Oh, you saw that? Wonderful, isn’t it. We’re doing your job for you.”

“Having a chit chat with news outlets is _not_ in my job description,” Fury snaps. 

“No,” Tony agrees, “your job is to keep Peter safe, something you’ve continuously failed at. Tell me, just what the fuck _was_ running through your head when you let your little alien sidekick take point on this one, huh? Because of _that_ genius idea, Peter was given access to technology he wasn’t supposed to even _know about_ until he was a college graduate!” 

Fury is silent for a minute. The pause is filled with restrained anger rather than any colour of shame. “My job is to keep the world safe, not some kid.”

“That kid is part of our world,” Tony snaps, standing now because he needs to work off some of the energy that’s building inside of him. “And it just so happens he’s the last active member of your little boyband, so unless you’re planning on staging some miraculous reunion tour—”

“Oh, for…” Fury makes some growling sound, “it’s a no on the press conference.”

“Not your call.”

“Oh? And what are you gonna do about the tracker on his ankle, then? Those are there to ensure you don’t leave the premises without my ok, and you do _not_ have my ok.”

Tony looks down at his ankle, free of the bracelet as he’d removed it last night. “Guess that puts an end to my little contumacy, huh?”

“Stark—”

“Fuck you.”

Tony ends the call.

He turns to Rhodey, who’s smirking. He shakes his head with exasperation that’s almost fond in flavour. “Never die ever again,” he warns. 

Tony smiles a little. “You made it this long without me.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey agrees, and there’s something in his voice that catches, weighted and worn. “But I don’t know how I made it five minutes, man.”

Tony stares. There are words on the tip of his tongue, another apology and maybe a thank you and, oddly enough, he thinks he might have asked about Roberta. That is, if Morgan hadn’t come barrelling down the stairs and right into Rhodey’s arms. 

“Uncle War Machine!”

Rhodey laughs. “There’s my best girl. How’s it goin’?”

“Super good! Mommy got more juice pops and brought daddy back!”

“I saw that,” Rhodey says.

Tony’s grin widens on its own. “Just what are you doing up so early, little miss?”

“I heard yelling,” she confesses sheepishly, curling against Rhodey. “Was it the man with the eye patch?”

“It _was_ the man with the eye patch,” Tony confirms. 

“Did you tell him to walk the plank?”

He and Rhodey laugh together. “Yeah, something like that.” 

* * *

**4 unread messages**

**Flash Thompson:** _hey dickwad, just thought i’d send u a link for a video i posted on my channel, since mr hogan mentioned u were a fan and all :)_

**May:** _hey baby, pepper mentioned you’re back online and all so I thought I would check in. Let me know how you’re doing!_

**webster’s posse**

**pussy cat:** _yo bitches the video is up_

**pussy cat:** _here’s a link go wild_

* * *

The video starts with a black screen overlaid by Wii music. The words _peter parker being soft and answering ur questions ft. spudnik_ appear in bold comic sans. 

It cuts to Harley and Peter sitting cross legged on the floor of Morgan’s bedroom, backs against the wall. They’re muttering to each other, heads practically pressed together. 

Shuri’s voice comes from off camera. “Okay, we’re rolling, assholes.”

Harley looks up and flashes a million-dollar grin. “Hey losers, I’m Harley Keener,”

“and I’m Peter Parker,”

“and you’re watching Disney Channel,” they finish together. Peter makes a poor attempt at tracing the signature mouse ears with an invisible wand, a movement Shuri zooms in on and tracks. 

“You guys have to be serious,” Shuri warns. “This is going on _my_ channel.”

“I could always make one,” Peter suggests.

“Excuse me, but I actually _have_ clout,” Shuri argues. “We’re making this video so you can get some.”

“That’s not why we’re making this video.”

“It is a little bit.”

[cut]

Harley addresses the camera. “So Shuri sent out a tweet asking you guys to reply with your most burning questions for Spider Man, here, and we’re gonna answer them.”

“Some of them,” Peter corrects.

“Excuse me bitch when did I say you could speak?”

“But—”

“You talk when you’re _addressed,_ bitch,” Shuri calls. Out of the frame, she’s sitting on Morgan’s bed, scrolling idly through her tablet. “Otherwise keep silent.”

Harley nods. “Now firstly, we just wanna get a few things outta the way. Number one: we will _not_ be answering personal questions pertaining to the residence of Peter Parker nor the school he’s enrolled in, and super weird questions will be completely disregarded.”

“But that takes all of the fun out of it,” Peter complains. 

“Okay, fine, we’ll roast the weird questions,” Harley acquiesces. “Lettuce bean.”

Peter throws a deadpan look at the camera. 

“@Shuuri asks: what was being blipped like?”

Peter sputters. “Seriously? _That’s_ the one you pick to start with?!”

“It was the first one!”

“Isn’t talking about that like, triggering for some people?”

Harley coos. “Aww, see, look at that. Would a murderer care about triggering people?!” He grabs Peter’s face in his hands as he speaks and pinches his cheeks.

“Oh my god, stop.”

“ _Lookathisliddleface—”_

[cut]  


Peter is looking at the camera again, this time with an expression of exasperation. Harley doesn’t even seem to notice as he obliviously reads out the next question. “We’ll start with something simple, then. @Wakandania asks: how old are you?”

“Sixteen. Sort of.”

“Makes sense. Okay, we got like five ‘how tall are you’s in a row, I can answer that: not at all, uhh, what’s your biggest fear?”

Peter blinks dramatically at Harley’s jibe. The camera zooms in on that, too. He answers the question though; “Spiders.”

Harley laughs. “Okay but seriously, what’s your biggest fear?”

“ _Spiders,_ ” Peter repeats without missing a beat. 

Harley freezes. “Are you… _seriously?”_

Peter shrugs. “Yeah.”

“I-I’m not even gonna touch that. Okay, question number… three? Who cares. How did you get your super powers, and what are they exactly?”

“Super strength, super healing,” Peter lists off, “enhanced senses—”

“The Peter Tingle.”

Peter pauses. He closes his eyes and looks like he’s trying not to scream. “I’m so close to snapping with that, you have no idea.”

“Violent. Terrible. Oh, and snap is a trigger word. I’m starting to think you _did_ murder Beck.”

Shuri cackles from the side. Peter gapes at Harley, and then at the camera. “This suddenly seems incredibly counter-productive.”

“Can’t stop won’t stop. We’re in too deep.”

  
[cut]

“Wait a minute,” Harley says, “I have something to say about the whole Beck thing.”

“I’ll allow it.”

Harley glares at the camera. “This one goes out to J.J. Fuckin’ Bittenbinder from the Daily Bugle—” he ignores Peter’s surprised snort of laughter, “see, the thing that disturbs me the most about your story isn’t that you willingly exposed a minor, or that you actually tried to convince people I was a murderer using an obviously edited video, it’s really just that you tried to insinuate, with a straight face, that _Beck_ was more of a hero than _Tony Stark_. You actually compared that Walmart Thor to Jesus 2.0? Seriously? Like, I could go on, but I don’t want to take up all our time, so I’ll just email you my dissertation on why you suck.”

Peter’s shoulders are shaking from silent laughter. He collects himself by taking a few deep breaths. 

Harley clears his throat. “So you still haven’t finished the question by the way. Is there anything else you can do, super-powers wise?” 

“I don’t know, I’m like, agile? But I guess you could chalk that up to the four years of ballet I took. Oh, and I can stick to things, too, and like, on ceilings and walls and stuff.”

Harley nods like it’s the most normal proclamation in the world. “And how did you acquire these abilities, Mr Parker?”

“A spider bite.”

Again, Harley freezes. Then he pinches his brow and sucks in a deep breath. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Peter grins. “I’m not, I swear.”

“I thought it was just—like, an aesthetic! Like Ant Man!”

“Ant Man’s whole thing isn’t _just_ an aesthetic—”

“But your identity is like, an homage to the bug that bit you and probably almost killed you?!”

“Okay first of all, a spider isn’t a bug, it’s an arachnid—”

[cut]

“Okay. Whatever. Moving on: what’s your favourite subject in school?”

“Science.”

“Elaborate on that.”

“What?”

“There are many different kinds of science—”

“Chemistry.”

Harley snorts. “Lame.”

“What is it with engineering geeks and shitting on people who like science over tech?!”

“It’s called ‘being superior and knowing it’.”

“Well that’s just false.”

“Oh, okay, so you’re saying Bruce Banner is more awesome than Tony Stark?”

Peter pauses. “I never said that.”

“Yeah, but you implied it—”

“ _No_ , and besides, what if I did think that? I’m sure there are people who do.”

“Exactly zero people think that. You’re a freak.”

“I never said I _actually_ think that though—”

“I’m disowning you.”

” _What?”_

“Hey Siri, how do you divorce your surrogate brother?”

Peter lunges for the phone with a laugh. For a few seconds, they wrestle off screen, until the camera is jostled and falls over, revealing that Peter has managed to get the phone out of Harley’s grip. He shoves the other boy away and holds it out of reach. 

Shuri appears, picking the camera up and turning it on her face. “I am _so_ sorry you had to see those ugly fools flopping around like that.”

She keeps shooting them anyway.  
  
  
  
“Give it back!”

“No!”

“Yes! It’s my only job! I’ll be obsolete if I’m not the interrogator!”

“Wait, _what?”_

There’s a grunt, a strangled choke, and then Peter says, “Ow! Don’t punch me!”

“Y’all heard it here first,” Shuri says, setting the camera back onto the tripod, “Harley is the real killer.”

“Yeah,” Harley agrees as he sits up, looking ruffled. “ _Lady_ killer.”

“Uh, okay, _Ted Bundy.”_ Peter retorts. 

“Wait— _no—_ ”

“Hey! Assholes! We’re still rolling here!”

[cut]

Peter sighs. He reluctantly hands over the phone, which results in a gleeful whoop from Harley. He happily scrolls through the questions until he settles on one he likes. “Okay, @QueenShuri asks: what’s your sexuality?”

“I happen to swing both ways,” Peter replies, and the camera cuts to zoom as he winks. 

“I feel like you thought about that one a lot.” 

Peter laughs, bright and open. “Can you just ask another question please, Spudnik?”

“Next question! Did your family know you were Spider-Man the whole time, or did they find out with everyone else?”

Peter scrunches up his face. “Well it’s just me and my aunt, and she’s known for a while now.”

“Why is it just you and your aunt?”

“You already _know_ why.”   
  
  
“Yeah, but the rest of the world doesn’t, so it’s my job to ask the follow up questions! Do tell us about your parents, please, Peter Parker.”

“Uh... they were geneticists for some company, I don’t know which. They died when I was five, so I don’t remember them too much, but everyone’s always told me they were nice.”

Harley nods. “Okay, uh, @HowardPottsNotDead asks—”

“I’m sorry, what was that name?” Peter leans over to see and then grins. “Wow. Okay, read the question.”

“Who’s your favorite avenger, dead or alive?”

Peter nods. He looks right into the camera. “Captain America.”

Harley bursts into laughter. “Please, no, you have to let them know you’re joking—you can’t let the world think you’re Team Steve—”

“Oh, I’m Team Steve,” Peter says gravely. 

“You _fought him in Germany!”_

Peter shrugs. “He was nice enough.”

“He _dropped a jet rail on you!”_

Peter studies his nails. “Like I said, super strength.”

Harley stops his sputtering to consider that. “How much _can_ you lift?”

“I… I actually don’t know.”

“Well what’s the heaviest thing you’ve ever lifted?”

Peter’s pallor is barely noticeable. The room is so bright and white it doesn’t fully translate onto camera. His eyebrows furrow a little. He pretends to think. “Uh… how heavy do you think concrete support beams are?”

“Let me look it up.” There’s a pause. “Maybe like… 360 kilograms each? So that’s like 780 pounds?” 

“Okay so like, several of those at once, and also the additional weight of like, part of a ceiling—”

“Are you telling me you can lift actual tons?”

Peter pauses, almost sheepish. “Maybe.”

Harley backtracks. “Dude, what _fell_ on you?”

Peter claps his hands together. “Next question!”

“ _Dude—”_

Peter snatches the phone. He and Harley start wrestling for the phone again. “What—ow—what’s your best friend like?” he winces and calls out, strained, “really nice, his name is Ned—”

“Give it!”

“Are you single— _shit—_ no!” Peter rolls. The camera camera shudders but doesn’t fall. “What’s your stance on pineapple on pizza—”

“ _Peter Parker is evil!”_

“Pineapple on pizza is cursed and anyone who thinks otherwise belongs in jail,” Peter manages, from somewhere underneath Harley’s body. “Okay, I’m done! Shoutout to Flash Thompson and his mob, or whatever—”

Peter reaches up and the camera catches the peace sign he flashes. Then it cuts to black.

* * *

  
  
**webster’s posse**

**potato boi changed peter parkour’s name to bider-boi**

**bider-boi:** _fucking why_

**potato boi:** _matchy matchy :)_

**bider-boi:** _cursed_

**bider-boi changed potato boi’s name to boilem-mashem-stickeminastew**

**boilem-mashem-stickeminastew:** _WHAT THE FUCK I HATE YOU_

* * *

Norman is so absorbed in his work, he doesn’t notice Harry enter the office until his son clears his throat. 

“Father?”

Norman raises his eyes from the contracts he’s been combing through, showing just enough interest to gauge his son forward. Harry’s step is tentative. “You asked to see me?”

“Yes,” Norman confirms mildly. He then returns to his contracts, aware of Harry fidgeting in his peripheral vision, head down and hands clasped. He looks so _weak_ like that, like he wants to make himself as small as humanly possible. It isn’t posture suited for an Osborn. “Stand up straight,” he orders, finally setting the papers down. 

Harry heeds his word. He squares his jaw and steps even closer, which is both a relief an annoyance to Norman. It’s nice to know his son actually has a pair, but it’s a revelation that’s come so late in life, it might as well not have come at all. 

What self respecting seventeen year old cowers beneath the gaze of their father?

“Sit.”

Harry sits. His features are carefully schooled. Norman studies him for a moment, his own face impassive, and then pulls up a projection. 

A video appears, paused, the frame stuck on two boys caught mid-laugh. Their appearances are scruffy and unkept. 

Harry blinks. “That’s him?”

Norman nods. “I’m going to leave. Watch it as many times as you need. Let me know when you’re finished.”

His son says nothing, but he eyes the screen with enough determination to spark hope in Norman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I FUCKIN HATE THIS CHAPTER BUT I CANT SEEM TO FIX IT!!! SO HERE IT IS!!! A GARBAGE FEST!!!
> 
> I’m soooo sorry it’s been so long without an update, I’ve been working on another fic (which I rlly wanna post as soon as it’s done) but anyway hi :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m S O fuckin sorry this took so long but i was writing for another fic (which is now done) so i have more time to work on this one again!! (also if ur interested, the first chapter of my other wip is up, it’s called ‘build from scraps’) 
> 
> i love u guys!!! pls tell me ur thoughts after u read i adore hearing from u!!!!
> 
> also warning: traumatic shit ahead in this chap, shootings n stuff, watch out and b safe!!

~~~~  
VIII

They’re in the garage again and they’ve been working for so long that the day has long died away, but it’s hard to tell with everything swathed in artificial light. 

Tony had let himself get wrapped up in the work, mindlessly tightening bolts, re-wiring engine parts and getting himself absolutely covered in grease. 

But it’s been on his mind the whole time, a black hole that consumes any other possible train of thought. 

So eventually Tony turns around, wiping his hands with an old rag as he eyes the kid. 

Peter is perched at one of the workbenches. He’d begged off of fixing the car a little while ago to tinker with something else. Every once in a while he’ll mutter something to Karen, but other than that he doesn’t speak. There’s a familiarity to it all that’s almost eerie; how he gets hyper-fixated on whatever it is in front of him, not stopping until he’s finished.

Tony knows how dangerous that can be. 

He throws the towel toward DUM-E, who whirls around to catch it but misses at the last second.

“God,” Tony gripes, “you’re the bane of my existence, you know that? I don’t know why I didn’t dissemble you for spare parts years ago.”

DUM-E lowers his claw and beeps pitifully. From across the room Peter says, “You’re the reason he has insecurities, Mr Stark.”

He’s so distracted he doesn’t even notice the slip up. It pulls Tony’s lips up a little, because he’d been waiting for it. Just for a second, he lets himself pretend they really are back at the compound workshop again, just them and the bots and too much heavy metal music. 

Tony walks over. He hovers for a moment, and then gives into the urge, sitting opposite the kid. 

“Hey, Pete?”

Peter hums without looking up. He’s working on the circuitry for something, but the parts are all scattered and Tony doesn’t have the brain space to mentally assemble them. He sighs and snaps his fingers. 

Peter finally looks up. He smiles, awkward and sheepish. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Tony assures him, for maybe the millionth time since the day they’d met. He’ll do it a million times more if he has to, though, until the kid gets it. “Can we talk?”

Peter shrugs. He gingerly sets his pliers down and wipes his palms on his jeans. “About what?”

“Well, I watched that video Shuri posted today—”

Immediately the kid blushes. “I know it was super stupid. If you think I should, I can text her and ask her to take it down or something—”

“No, kid,” Tony tries to reassure him, “I just… I had…” he sighs, wondering when the hell speaking suddenly became so difficult, and forces himself to just spit it out. “What fell on you, kid?”

The blood drains from Peter’s face so quickly it’s startling, but it’s just a split second before it’s all scrunched up in faux confusion. “What do you mean?”

“See, that? That’s what worries me. That you won’t just be honest and tell me. That makes me automatically assume it’s _bad,_ which with your track record probably isn’t far off base. Please for the love of god, tell me I’m wrong?”

Peter shifts. He tries to speak, stops, and then starts again. “Promise you won’t be mad?”

Immediately Tony is moving to Peter’s side of the table. “Why would I be mad?”

“I’m about to tell you,” Peter says, “but… just don’t be? Please?”

Tony sucks in a deep breath as the panic rises inside of him, clawing and scraping at the walls of his stomach. He forces it down as best as he can and manages a sharp nod. 

“You remember Toomes?”

“Phineas Sharp, sure.”

“Who?”

Tony weeps for whatever cartoons this kid grew up watching. “Don’t worry about it. Of course I remember your first big bad. What about him?”

Peter hesitates. “It was… it happened that night. Before I took him down at Coney Island. I had tracked him to this warehouse and I confronted him like a total _idiot,_ and he somehow managed to control his suit without actually being _in it,_ so when it came at me I just, like, dodged and stuff, and I was so busy thinking, _oh, this guy’s in way over his head, I just made him look like an ass—_ and then the whole building came down on me.”

Tony’s mind is suffocated by confusion but his heart strains and skips, already way ahead of the game.  
  
  
  
“I don’t understand.”

“He took out the support beams,” Peter explains, and then it clicks. _Oh._ “I hadn’t even noticed, and then it all just _fell_ on me, and I couldn’t breathe and…” he stops, mouth twisting. “Doesn’t matter.”

“You…” Tony forces himself to breathe when his vision swims. “You lifted an entire building? And you think it doesn’t _matter?”_

“You promised you wouldn’t be mad.”

He’s standing. He doesn’t know when that happened but he is, all charged up and panicking. “I’m—I’m not mad.”

“You _look_ mad.”

“I’m _not.”_

“Should I get a mirror? Because you’re doing that thing where you get all stiff and your face is kinda red and—”

“Please just,” Tony holds up his hands to sue for silence, “don’t make me angry when I’m trying not to be angry.”

Peter’s mouth clamps shut.

Tony leans back on the counter behind him, hands curled into fists around the metal, bracing himself so he doesn’t fall to the floor.  
  
  
But then his grip is too tight and his left arm spasms again with a phantom chronic pain, and Tony stumbles.

“Mr Stark!”

Next thing he knows they’re both on the ground. Peter is studying him, brows knitted together. “FRI, do a biometric scan for me, please?”

“On it.”

Tony still hasn’t spoken. He doesn’t know how. It’s all just hitting him at once—how many times this kid has almost died, and how much of it is his fault. 

He’d taken away the suit. He’d taken it away and because of that, his kid had been forced to _lift a building_ off of his shoulders, all alone and probably scared out of his mind, thinking Tony was mad at him—

“Boss is showing signs of a panic attack,” FRIDAY announces in a steady voice. “His BPM has spiked to 103 and his brain isn’t getting enough oxygen. He needs to breathe.”

Peter nods. His hand curls around Tony’s wrist, warm, just enough of an anchor for Tony to fall back inside himself abruptly. He hadn’t realised how far he’d let himself drift off and now all he can feel is the strain on his lungs, but he can’t quite remember how to fix it, what to do—

Peter places his hands on either side of Tony’s face, so they’re just looking at each other. “Please just breathe. In and out, okay? With me.”

He draws in an exaggerated breath and with no other options, Tony follows suit. 

It’s breaking through the surface of the ocean. Everything had been dimmed, sounds had been muffled, and now it’s all clear again. He finds himself lurching forward and pulling Peter against his chest, holding him as tight as he can without crushing him. 

Peter wriggles a little but settles between Tony’s knees. “Hey, I’m okay.”

“ _Bullshit,”_ Tony rasps. 

Peter’s hand has gone back to his wrist. He’s measuring Tony’s pulse, he realises. His other hand is still on Tony’s cheek, though, almost like he’d forgotten to pull away. 

Tony turns his head and kisses Peter’s palm. It’s the only _thank you_ he can manage, and it’s only because he’s high on a lack of oxygen and the come down from his panic attack, just drifting with the natural course of his delirium. 

Peter looks up from his watch, a little startled. He doesn’t pull his hand away. 

“You scared me.” 

Tony shakes his head. “Your little confessional just knocked the wind out of me, kid, that’s all. I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“You’re a bad liar,” Peter deadpans. 

Tony hums. He leans back against the drawers. “So are you, kiddo.”

Peter’s shoulders fall. For a minute, he’s totally quiet, lost in his own ruminations. It leaves Tony all by himself with only the beeping of the bots to keep him from disassociating again. 

Then Peter meets his eyes. “I still have nightmares about it.”

“God, Peter, I’m so sorry,” he breathes and closes his eyes, even though there was nothing remotely accusatory in the kid’s gaze. Tony just feels too guilty to look at him. 

“What? It wasn’t your fault—”

“Oh yeah? I took the suit.”

“You didn’t know I’d need it,” Peter argues. “Besides, it wasn’t _that_ bad—”

“Don’t try to downplay it.” Tony’s eyes snap open and something in his gaze must be like fire because Peter flinches back a little. Tony doesn’t ever want that, though. “You don’t have to brush it off just to make me feel better. I don’t want you to think you need to _hide_ these things from me.”

“You just collapsed over something that happened to me a year ago.”

_Six years,_ Tony corrects automatically, but doesn’t say it out loud.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony decides. “I need you to tell me, kid. I gotta know this stuff, otherwise how can I help you? And for the record, bottling it up doesn’t do you any favours. Take it from me.”

Peter hangs his head, his brow connecting with Tony’s knee and resting there. He isn’t able to stop himself from reaching out and cradling the back of Peter’s neck. Honestly, he doesn’t really think about it. His dad-reflexes aren’t something he even notices anymore. 

Peter leans back into the touch. He looks up at Tony with shining, slightly red-rimmed eyes. 

“Everyone was asking me who the next Iron Man was gonna be,” he whispers suddenly. “They were asking if it was gonna be _me,_ and I just kept thinking about that day with the ferry and how you told me you wanted me to be _better,_ and I didn’t… I don’t know how to be better than you, Tony. I don’t know how to do that.”

It’s funny. Tony’s had his heart broken before, but usually the sensation is closer to a shattering feeling, like a thousand glass shards that shred his chest to ribbons. _This_ heartbreak is different; it’s like his chest collapses in on itself, a dying star, a supernova. 

The kid is shaking as Tony pulls him close, and the second he can, he buries his face in the crook of Tony’s neck and _sobs._

“You’re better than me just by _breathing,_ Petey,” he whispers, right into the crown of Peter’s head, and presses a kiss there. “You’re better than I could ever be.”

He doesn’t know if Peter hears. He’s just crying, folding into himself and clutching Tony’s shirt and god, he’s so _small._ He’s just a kid, sixteen years old, carrying around more grief and pain and fire than he should ever have to. 

Tony kisses his cheek again just to remind him he’s there. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter croaks, maybe ten minutes later. He’s staring at Tony’s tear-soaked shoulder.

“Don’t even. Besides, it’s only Black Sabbath. Now, if you’d slobbered all over _Aerosmith,_ we’d have a problem.”

Peter laughs shakily and reaches up to wipe his cheeks dry, but Tony beats him to it. He holds Peter’s face for a minute, flushed with warmth and puffy from crying. 

_I love you,_ Tony thinks.

But the words don’t come out. They don’t have a chance to because DUM-E comes whirring over, leaving a trail of oil in his wake. He’s clutching a mug in his claw which he hands to them.

Peter takes it. “Thank you, DUM-E,” he says, so sincerely and softly Tony is _sure_ DUM-E stands two inches taller. 

“Don’t drink that.” Tony takes the cup and just like he suspected, it’s full of gasoline. 

“He’s out to get me, I swear.”

Peter laughs again. In that moment, it’s the best thing Tony has ever heard. Well, no, Morgan’s first word is definitely number one, but the laugh is way up in the top five at least.

“Tony?”

He snaps back to attention. “Always tell me stuff,” he blurts. Peter frowns in confusion. “Always tell me when it hurts, kid, _please._ I don’t just mean in the physical sense. I mean… when you can’t sleep, when it’s keeping you up like that… _please_ just tell me? ‘Cuz I’m right here with you. I’m in your corner and I’m not going _anywhere.”_

Peter stares for a moment. Then he nods slowly and holds up his pinky. “Promise?”

“What is this, sixth grade?” 

“Just do it.” 

Tony grins. He curls his pinky around Peter’s. “I promise, kiddo.”

It seems to satisfy the kid. He nods and then leans against Tony, wrapping his arms around his middle and closing his eyes. His nose is warm and pressed against Tony’s pulse point. Tony reaches up to run his finger’s through the kid’s curls, the weight of the promise heavier than any he’s ever made. 

* * *

The morning of the press conference finds Tony standing in the kitchen nursing a cup of long-cold coffee, scanning a hologram that displays the speech Pepper has prepared for Peter. 

It’s not very long, just a few lines. Her’s is much meatier and he makes offhand annotations to it— _you sound too angry here; they’ll bite your head off for that one; remember, I’m dead, so sound like you miss me more._

Rhodey slides a bowl of oatmeal across the counter.

“What is this? Cement?”

“Eat it. You need the protein.”

Tony hums noncommittally and continues to read over Pepper’s outline. The thought of eating makes him feel sick. Probably something to do with the fact that he’s been awake for forty hours straight and can’t remember the last time he actually, like, sat down. 

“Tony.”

“ _Rhodey.”_ Tony throws a glare over his shoulder. “I can say your name all disappointed too, see?”

Rhodey rolls his eyes. There’s something tender in his expression though, like understanding. He ends up sighing and chucking an orange at Tony instead, which Tony lets bounce off his shoulder and roll across the floor. 

“Why do I even bother?”

“That’s a good question.”

Pepper bursts into the room before they can slide into an exchange of quippy one-liners and cheap shots. She’s dressed in a pristine white suit and snapping at someone over the phone. 

“I don’t care what he said, I want Todd in row three.” She aims a smile at Tony that contrasts her sharp tone. “No, that’s not what I meant. Put Marie on the phone.”

Just like that she’s gone. Tony sinks his teeth back into the holographic to fight the suffocating wave of nostalgia, because everything is the same and totally different at once and nothing will _ever_ be the way it was before; are they in the good days now, or were the good days a decade ago? 

“Make me eggs or perish!”

Morgan’s voice is the only thing that’s able to draw him from his amorphous anxieties. 

Her palm is open and aimed at them, only she’s not wearing those red fingerless gloves she likes to pretend with. 

There’s an actual gauntlet on her hand. 

“Morgan, where the _hell_ did you get that?!”

His voice is an octave higher than normal and he immediately steps forward to grab at her, Rhodey already circling around behind just in case. 

“Petey gave it to me!”

“I— _what?”_

Morgan shrugs. “He made it. Said it was okay to blast you!”

Tony’s pulse skips. “Maguna, listen, we’ve _talked_ about staying out of the garage before, honey. I need you to take that off, it’s not safe.”

“It is!” Morgan insists. “I’ll show you!”

And just like that the repulsor illuminates, accompanied by the signature piercing whine of an electric charge. Tony’s been hit by one before, but never this close and to make it worse, he has no idea how high the frequency is set.

“Morgan, _don’t—”_

She fires.

Tony flinches, but he’s not hit with a blast of blinding light like he expected. Instead, all that comes out are… 

Bubbles. 

Peter made her a bubble-spewing repulsor. 

Tony is so relieved not to have a hole in his chest that he starts laughing, and Morgan giggles too because she’d known all along it wasn’t dangerous, and Rhodey just freezes, wide eyed with his arms outstretched. 

“What the hell?” he whispers. 

Tony sinks to the floor in a breathless heap. “C’mere, kiddo.”

Morgan actually listens this time. She lets him dismantle the gauntlet. It’s tinted purple instead of red, her very own colour, and inside the circuitry isn’t quite what he’s expecting; there are two cartridges lining the walls filled with fluid, like Peter’s web-shooters. He’d combined his technology with Tony’s and turned dangerous weapons into a toy. 

“I don’t know what else I expected.”

“Isn’t it super cool?!”

“Way cool,” Tony agrees sincerely. He hands the gauntlet over so Rhodey can inspect it and scoops Morgan up. “But next time warn me first, okay? I came dangerously close to a heart attack.”

The frantic thud of footsteps on the stairs heralds Peter’s arrival. “Morgan!”

“I showed him!” Morgan announces gleefully. 

“Oh my god.” Peter’s eyes are blown wide. “I’m _so_ sorry, she just ran off when I was in the middle of making config adjustments—”

“Kid, it’s okay.” Tony kisses Morgan’s temple and then sets her down. “I mean, she scared the shit outta me, but what can you do? Anyway, I definitely want to trademark these.” 

Peter blushes and shrugs, all bashful energy. “You don’t think they’re lame?”

“Are you kidding me? I feel like a dumbass for not thinking of it earlier.”

“Dumbass,” Morgan repeats sagely. She aims another stream of bubbles for his head. 

“This family is too chaotic.” Rhodey shakes his head. “I’m gonna go. I’ll meet you at the press conference, okay, Pete?”

All at once Peter’s smile dies. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Cool.”

* * *

It is decidedly not cool.

Peter stands backstage and pulls at his cuffs for maybe the millionth time. He’s trying not to sweat. He doesn’t know if it’s actually physically possible to stop yourself from sweating, but he’s still _doing his best._

His best, admittedly, isn’t very good.

Pepper is off somewhere handling some issue with the lighting. Peter had only caught half of what she’d said before rushing off, and he’s starting to regret it now because what if she’d mixed something important in there? Is there something he’s supposed to be doing right now? 

He feels sick. There’s a pitcher of chilled water on a stand nearby but he can’t actually get his body to follow where his brain wants it to go. 

Peter starts to pace. 

He walks in a long line, occasionally glancing past the curtain through to the auditorium. 

There are _hundreds_ of people out there, all crowded together in sub-par seats. The reporters in the first few rows are holding cameras and audio equipment—so they can, like, _record_ what he says, and then transcribe it into their chintzy articles about _Peter Parker: The Boy Who Passed Out On Stage._

No. He’s not gonna pass out. He’ll be fine. He can do this. 

“I have to do this,” he whispers aloud, to no one but himself. 

A body bursts through the curtain and barrels into him. Peter is so startled he doesn’t even register who it is until she’s in his arms, all floral perfume and patchouli oil from the flea markets on Corona. 

“ _May.”_

“How are you doing?” is the first thing she asks. “Are you okay? God, I keep wanting to bring you your inhaler before I remember you don’t need it anymore.”

Peter just stares at her, dumbfounded and slow with a stupid relief. But then he remembers, even if he wants her here, it doesn’t mean she should be.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the hotel? Y’know, where it’s safe?”

Her face scrunches up. “And miss this? Uh, no, I don’t think so kiddo.”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek. People keep calling him that, _kiddo,_ like he didn’t die, like he didn’t take out Beck, like he’s not about to face a bunch of nosy reporters that would probably rather dissect him for their answers than take the ones he offers at face value. 

“Peter? What’s wrong? Talk to me, baby.”

“What’s wrong?” He explodes. “What do you mean, what’s wrong?! I’ve never—I’ve never done _anything_ like this before! I mean, the last time I came this close to a stage I was Tree Number Three in the middle school rendition of Peter Pan!”

“Oh, honey,” May rubs her hands up and down his arms, “I know how hard you took it when they turned you down for Peter, but it’s been years, baby. No need to be so bitter about it still.”

It makes him laugh, and he knows that’s what she was aiming for. May’s hands still. The world stills. There’s a bubbly feeling in his stomach that builds steadily like a sunrise. 

Her smile is soft. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“I’m gonna be okay.”

The words ground him. They solidify inside, adding a much needed weight that keeps him from floating off. It’s the same way he’d felt, shaking and soaked to the bone with rain water, with blood; curled up on a plastic chair and staring at the doors to the police precinct; then she’d finally burst through, frantic until she saw him and then quickly shoving down all of her grief, her fear, her pain. She’d knelt in front of him and put her hands on his cheeks and told him it would be okay. 

They’d gotten through that, right? And after the Snap, they’d found each other again. 

He can handle this. He’s handled so, so much worse. 

“Hey, guys,” Happy cuts the moment short, and his frantic energy re-kindles something in Peter. “We got four minutes!”

May rolls her eyes. “Thank you, honey.”

Happy actually blushes, which is something Peter didn’t think was even possible until now. “Yeah,” he says, suddenly rigid. “Uh—”

“Can you go… do something? Guard someone? You’re giving me secondhand anxiety here.”

“See the thing is, I’m supposed to watch the kid, so—”

May turns back to Peter with a look that somehow finds a middle ground between exasperated and fond. “Don’t be stiff.”

“Right.” Peter nods. “Don’t be stiff.”

“Just read the cards,” May encourages. “You’ll do great. I have complete faith in you.”

“Complete faith,” Peter repeats faintly. “Yeah. Awesome. Does complete faith translate to complete embarrassment when I inevitably screw up?”

“You won’t screw up,” May and Happy say together. 

“Okay, we’re almost up!” 

Pepper arrives, clapping her hands together. She doesn’t have a hair out of place because unlike him, she’s done this like a thousand times before and knows exactly what to say, how to smile, how to _exist_ in the public eye. 

Peter seriously wishes there was a way to reverse all of this. Like maybe he could track down Dr Strange or something and beg him to cast some nationwide spell that would make everyone just _forget_ Peter’s other identity. 

But that would mean May forgetting too, and Ned and MJ, so he discards the idea. 

It’s better this way. He can do this.

Pepper reaches out and puts her hands on Peter’s shoulders. “Listen, you only have a handful of lines to read. They’re all gonna appear on the teleprompter, and you’ll have cards in front of you just in case you can’t see. It’ll be _fine,_ I promise. And remember: Tony and Morgan and Harley are all at home, and you’ll be with them as soon as this is over.”

Right. Home. Is that what the lakehouse is now?

Some intern with an earpiece mutters to Pepper that her queue is in eight seconds. Pepper nods, squeezes Peter’s shoulders, and doesn’t catch the look the intern sends his way. 

No one does.

He wishes they had. 

* * *

“He’s clamming up.”

“He’s _not_ clamming up.”

“Yes he is. Do you see that? How his face is all scrunched? That means he’s clamming up.”

Happy sighs. He’s standing right by her, all tense and overprotective. No one is even _looking_ at May, though. Their attentions are rightly focused on the stage, soaking up every word that flows from the radiant Pepper Potts’ mouth and writing each and every one down on faded legal pads.

May stands off to the side. She tries to catch Peter’s eye but he’s staring straight ahead, jaw locked. That means he might be sick. 

Every instinct is telling her this isn’t a good idea. It’s not even the reporters that are putting her on edge. It’s something else. Something in the _air,_ like the way her bones ache before a thunderstorm. 

May’s hand drifts to Happy’s. 

Her boyfriend startles and then looks down at her with a shy smile. “He’ll do good.”

Yeah. Yeah, of course he will. He’s never done anything less. 

* * *

Pepper’s speech is a good one. She stands with an elegant poise and speaks with an airy brand of grace, like it’s no big deal at all that some kid from Queens took up the vigilante title and started saving lives as an after school activity. 

She paints a nice picture; one with less carnage and broken pieces. Peter stops muggings, Peter swoops in to help after car accidents. 

When she breaks down the London incident, her tone changes into something no-nonsense. Her word is final on this. No further questions will be accepted. What she says happened, happened. 

It’s as she’s about to call him forward that his hair stands on end. 

For a nanosecond he writes it off as nerves, but a thousand voices in his mind suddenly scream as one, united in the agreement of _DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!_

_! TURN AROUND !_

“And now, a few words from Queens’ hero himself, Peter Parker.”

Pepper’s smile is dazzling and only exacerbated in its brilliance by the abundant studio lights. But he doesn’t match it. He can’t. 

Peter grabs her wrist. 

( _BADBADBADBAD_ )

“Peter?” 

“Something is wrong,” he hisses.

And then an explosion rattles the building. 

Peter lunges for Pepper. His ears ring as he practically pushes her off stage, steadying her in the same instance because he _can’t_ let her fall. A muffled cacophony presses against his eardrums, and he knows people are screaming, panicking, probably hurt and bleeding. 

Peter pushes all of that out of his mind. His senses are roaring against his psyche like a tidal wave but all he can think is _Pepper, get Pepper safe, Pepper Pepper Pepper—_

That’s when he hears the first gunshot. It tears through the dull rattle his hearing had become. Pepper flinches but Peter stays solid, and they run the rest of the way as more shots are fired. 

Peter pushes them into some three by three storage space. It’s cluttered with cleaning equipment and Pepper trips over a mop, but for a half second at least he hopes she feels some semblance of safety. 

“Are you okay?!”

Pepper doesn’t say anything. Maybe she can’t hear either. But she must be able to feel the urgency in his tone, the desperate vibrations rolling off of him, because she nods shakily. 

“Okay,” Peter rasps. His chest aches and he realises the air is thick with smoke and ash already. They never tell you how quickly it spreads in the movies. “Okay, okay. Stay here.”

Pepper’s eyes widen. “What?! Where do you think you’re going?!” 

“My backpack!” Peter tells her. “I need my backpack!”

His backpack has his suit. His backpack has Karen. If he can access her interface, maybe he can figure out just what the hell is going on. 

“No way! No, you’re not going _anywhere—”_

“Pepper, I’m sorry, but I _have to._ ” He has to. He has to do this. “I need to find May and Happy and make sure they’re safe. I’ll be right back, I promise, okay? Just stay here!”

“No, _you_ stay here! I’ll call Rescue!”

” _Pepper!”_ He puts his hands on either side of her face. “Please. _Stay here.”_

* * *

Someone is dragging her along. 

It takes her a moment to even register the fact that she’s moving at all. Half of her is still curled up against the wall of the stage, the edge digging into her side. 

She’d been thrown, propulsed by the blast. 

It had been like rain. Plaster falling from the ceiling, glass shattering into shards, smoke clouding her vision and coating her lungs. 

She’s dizzy. It’s Happy so she squeezes his hand and lets him pull her, lets his years of being Tony Stark’s personal bodyguard and _forehead of security_ do the work for her. 

She trusts. 

It’s her biggest mistake. 

Because when the emerge from the ruins of the press hall, May only gets one good gulp of fresh air before she’s rammed into a brick wall. 

It’s not Happy. 

It’s a face she doesn’t recognise at all.

The fear is sharp and sudden and steals her breath. Whatever clarity she gained from a lungful of clear oxygen dissipates. 

“What—”

A gloved hand covers her mouth. She hadn’t noticed the gloves. _God,_ why hadn’t she noticed? What was wrong with her? 

( _shock,_ some small part of her mind provides, _you’re in shock, May_ )

(the voice sounds, heartbreakingly, like Ben)

Grey eyes narrow and arms hold her tighter, squeeze her warningly. “ _Don’t speak.”_

May nods hastily. Her limbs are starting to grow heavy. She feels ragged and ripped. 

The hand falls away and the first thing May does is scream. 

It’s a choked sound, only half of what she hopes for. The word _Help_ tumbles past her lips because in that moment she still has hope, hope that someone will find her in this dark back alley, hope that maybe Happy or Peter will come.

A cloth is pressed against her mouth. It smells strangely sweet and again, Ben provides the answer, throws out a solution: don’t breathe. 

Her body rebels too quickly and she falls like a marionette. 

* * *

Peter is running with no direction. 

He checks every person he passes. He presses his fingers against the necks of crumbled bodies on the ground, and when he feels nothing, he forces himself to move on.

He thinks he might be crying, though. That must be what’s tickling his heated cheeks, what’s making his vision swim. 

Only two people aren’t dead so far and both times Peter has ushered them up and away. He finally finds his backpack in the rubble, stashed under a table where he’d left it—the table with the water; the water that’s spilled, the glass pitcher that’s broken. 

Peter pulls his mask on.

“Karen?”

“Peter!” Karen’s voice is more urgent than he expected, but of course the suit has a tracker and she has access to emergency alerts and police scanners, so she knows where he is, what he’s in the midst of. 

“Karen, I need you to call Tony.”

He shouldn’t be asking. Tony is still on house arrest. The whole world thinks he’s _dead,_ but…

But.

“I’m going to do a biometric scan first. Hold on.”

_Hold on?! While the world is falling apart?!_ Peter explodes. “Karen for the love of god, would you _please_ just call Tony!”

“Pepper Potts has activated a lockdown protocol on FRIDAY,” Karen reports. “I can’t get through!”

“What?! Override it!”

“My systems aren’t strong enough to do that,” Karen says. “Rescue has the unlock code, I might be able to tap into her mainframe and access FRIDAY that way.”

“Okay,” Peter breathes. “Okay, yeah, do that.”

“Peter,” Karen says softly, “you’re in shock and your vitals are too high. I’m activating the ‘Baby Has A Boo Boo’ Protocol—”

“The _what?”_

Karen doesn’t answer. Then there’s a sharp, pinching pain in his neck. “Ow! What was that?!”

“A quick shot of saline. It’ll help to calm you down.”

His veins suddenly feel colder. Peter takes a deep breath, and suddenly the screaming and the sirens are _so much louder,_ and behind the fallen, torn curtain there is chaos. 

“Did you get that unlock code yet?!”

_please please I need him_

“No, but—” 

Her voice cuts out as the building shakes again. A horrible, sick pause follows. And then the ceiling starts to crack.   


“Oh, shit.”

The sky caves in on Peter and his world goes dark.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo i’m so sorry this took three million fucking years for me to update,,,I have no excuses I’m just fucking lazy as shit
> 
> also warning it’s pretty heavy!! descriptions of violence and carnage and all that so y’know stay safe and all <3

IX

* * *

_Peter wakes up…_

* * *

_DAY ONE_

It’s nine in the morning when Paul comes home, back from whatever place his company had whisked him off to. MJ hadn’t been listening when he’d told her the details; she’d forcefully immersed herself into Dostoyevsky’s _The Idiot_ because really, the sound of his voice makes her want to vomit a little.

“Michelle,” he greets, setting his worn out duffels on the scuffed up floor. Everything in their apartment is shabby. They have second hand furniture and MJ usually buys most of her clothes from thrift stores, simply out of necessity rather than to be trendy. 

Money’s always been pretty tight. It’s been even worse ever since two parents became one. 

“Paul,” MJ retorts, not looking up from her book. She’s reading Nabokov’s _Pale Fire_ now, leaning full tilt into the whole Russian author kick, as she eats her cereal. 

It’s stale. It’s raisin bran. It’s her least favourite type of cereal ever. 

Michelle isn’t the only one who tunes things out in this house. 

Paul sets his keys down and takes off his coat. He doesn’t remove his shoes though, which means he’s not planning on staying long and the relief that floods her with that realisation is palpable. 

“How was your trip?”

MJ pauses. God, has he really been gone _that_ long? Two and a half weeks. That’s all the time it had taken for her life to completely change. Two and a half weeks isn’t even the longest he’s ever been gone for, but he’d departed mid-way through the field trip, probably sometime between her almost being melted in Prague and shot to shit in London. 

“It was… good.”

She’s not supposed to say anything about it, according to that weird dude with the eye patch, but she wouldn’t tell Paul even if she were like, on her deathbed or something. 

He’s like, the last person she’d ever go to with personal shit. Ever. 

Paul nods. He accepts her incredibly short, vague answer. They both go about their separate business. MJ dips into her room for a minute to grab her sketchbook, thinking she might head down to Central Park and try that new shading technique she’d watched a twenty minute long YouTube video for.

Then Paul turns on the TV.

“ _We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to report live from the scene at the Central Press Hall_ ,” a female voice blares. 

MJ stiffens, hunched over on the floor. She hears the words 'explosion’ and ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘press conference’. In an instant she’s scrambling to her feet and lurching for her phone. 

She calls Peter. 

Dial tone. Six rings. _Hi, this is Peter Parker, I’m afraid I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message I’ll get back to you as soon as possible! Thanks!_

MJ calls again. “Pick up, pick up, _please_ pick up…”

_Hi, this is Peter Parker, I’m afraid I can’t come to the phone right now—_

MJ hangs up. Calls again. 

_Hi, this is Peter Parker—_

“Dammit!”

“Michelle?!”

MJ looks up. She’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. She’d forgotten her whole world wasn’t twelve by twelve feet, a disorderly array of books and sketches on A4 paper, taped to her windows and made transparent by the pale morning sun. She forgets, always. 

MJ finds Paul standing in front of the couch rather than sitting on it. He looks up from the TV as she approaches, but MJ doesn’t look back.

Her eyes are glued to the screen. 

Plumes of smoke, thick and black, curling skyward. Helicopters, firefighters, sirens, wounded people running and collapsed on gurneys while medical professionals fuss over them; the press hall is just… _gone._ Blown to pieces. There’s only one wall left standing, the roof is gone, metal support beams are bent out of shape, glass is scattered across the ash-covered asphalt.

Image after image, overlaid by distress calls and strained reporters speculating the _who,_ the _why,_ the _how._

MJ already knows: it’s because Peter was there. _Is_ there. And they’re not giving any tid-bits about a spandex clad vigilante swooping in to save the day, either. 

No, they talk about Peter Parker, the sixteen year old boy, the most likely target of this attack. They paint him as a victim and say, unwaveringly, _there is no report on the whereabouts or livelihood of the Queens hero at this time._

“Michelle, I want you to stay here, okay?”

MJ finally rips her eyes away from the carnage. Here, she’s safe behind her TV screen. It’s not quite real yet. It’s just another big-budget battle scene in a movie. It’s not her boyfriend probably dead, along with who knows how many others. 

“What? Where are you going?”

Paul shakes his head. He’s white and shaking. “I need to—there are people I might know—”

Oh, of course. Paul. Poor fucking Paul. Paul is a god-damn reporter too. Fucking Paul who she always forgets about until he re-enters her orbit like the universes’ most stubborn asteroid. Fucking Paul, her step-dad, works for the damn Daily Bugle. 

“Okay,” MJ says. “Go, I’ll stay.”

She won’t, but it’s whatever. He doesn’t have to know.

He nods. Grabs his coat and keys. Looks down at his feet and realises he’s still wearing his shoes. Glances at the TV again and, even though she hadn’t thought it was possible, grows even more pale. 

“Call your sister!” He shouts, on his way out. 

The door slams. MJ flinches. 

Call your sister, he’d instructed, like she’s not twelve hours away in fucking Indiana. Why should she call Charlie? What the fuck would either of them have to say to each other?

MJ calls Peter instead. _Hi, it’s—_

She tunes out the rest. “Peter,” MJ says, “I swear to god, if you don’t pick up your phone I’m gonna find you, and I’m gonna kill you, okay? Because you’re not dead. You’re not dead but you _will be,_ I swear to god.”

Nothing happens of course. The news is still blaring, some blonde chick with an out of date perm is practically screaming updates into MJ’s apartment. 

Her phone is blowing up. Text after text from the FoS chat, from the half-dead AcaDec chat, texts from Ned to just her, texts from Betty, from Cindy, from fucking _Flash._

“Peter. Please. Answer your phone.”

_I need to know that you’re alive. I need to know you’re okay. Please please please._

Her phone rings. 

It’s not Peter. It’s Ned.

“ _What?”_

“MJ! Oh my god! Are you watching the news?!”

“Yes,” she snaps, feeling so brittle she might break in half with a light wind, “I’m watching.”

“God, why aren’t you _answering?!_ I’ve been freaking out for the last five—no, never mind, it doesn’t matter. Listen, I’m going down to the scene—”

“What?! No!”

What is he even talking about? He doesn’t have a car. He can’t drive. His mom would _never_ in a million years agree.

“I’m only like two blocks away,” Ned says, and fuck, his voice is shaking. She can tell how scared he is. “I-I _felt it,_ MJ. When it happened. It was… it was really bad.”

MJ’s fingers fly to her mouth. “Do you—do you know what’s happening? Like, Avengers wise?”

“Harley says Mr Stark took off, but—”

“He’s not there yet,” MJ finishes. “No one’s talking about Iron Man on the news.”

“Right,” Ned agrees. “The lake house is like three hours from the city and—shit, should we be talking about this on the phone?!”

“I don’t care!” MJ practically shouts. She stomps closer to her TV like she might actually be able to storm through it. “Fuck, I’m going too. I can’t just sit here.”

“Okay, but—hold on—”

He’s silent for a minute and it’s only then that MJ realises just how loudly her heart is pounding, like it’s going to _rip_ through her chest and take her by the hand and manually _drag_ her paralysed-with-fear ass down to the scene of a bombing. 

Ned’s voice cuts through her thoughts just in time before she starts to spiral. “Okay, so, Betty says she’s out of town but Flash is gonna come pick you up.”

“ _Flash?”_

“Yes, Flash. It’s in the gc. Are you not reading it?!”

“Flash,” MJ repeats dumbly. “What the fuck, Ned.”

“I know, I know, but this is like, obviously an emergency okay? Are you still coming?”

MJ nods but then remembers he can’t see her. More cop cars are arriving at the scene, more fire fighters, more everything. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.”

Ned says something else she doesn’t hear. Maybe it’s an ETA on Flash or some words of reassurance, but whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. 

MJ hangs up the phone. 

She calls Peter again.

_Hi this is—_

* * *

Tony lands in the middle of an ashy grey bedlam. There are people all around him, so hopped up on adrenaline and confusion and fear that they don’t even bat an eye when Tony “I’m Totally Dead” Stark drops onto the concrete sidewalk and then steps out of his suit. 

He runs. Pushes, ducks, cranes his neck, and finally feels his heart stop because _there she is._

Her suit which had been pristine this morning is now torn down the skirt and covered in soot. Her hairstyle is coming undone. She’s arguing with some Tom Ford wearing official, gesturing wildly with her hands, and she looks like an angel.

Really. He’s not just saying that because he’s panicking out of his mind. 

Tony gets tunnel vision looking at her and hones in, like he’s advancing on a target. 

“Pepper—”

“I don’t care! There are people _in there still!_ You need to be focusing your efforts on getting them _out!”_

“Ma’am, we _are,_ but as you can see there are injured all around and our resources have to focus on keeping as many people alive as possible—”

“People are dying _inside!”_

“Pepper!”

“Tony, thank _god,_ I need you to—wait—what the _hell are you doing here?!”_

“Okay, okay,” Tony puts his hands on her shoulders, “I really need you to calm down right now, because your voice is doing that shrill thing and I might lose my hearing if you don’t stop.”

Pepper looks like a short-circuiting robot. “What the hell, Tony?!”

“Tony,” the official repeats, strained expression smoothed into one of awe. “Tony _Stark?_ You’re _alive?”_

“Clearly.”

“But… but…”

“Come on,” Tony says, “this is so not the time—”

“You’re not _dead?!”_

“Enough!” Pepper yells. She throws her hands up. Sets her blazing gaze on Tony. “Morgan?”

“She’s with Harley, she’s _fine._ What about everyone else?”

(What about Peter?) 

Pepper doesn’t have a modicum of chill right now, but the next words out of her mouth erase any he might have had; whatever hope he had deluded himself with on the way here just _disappears,_ because:

“They’re not…” Pepper’s voice shakes. She closes her eyes. “Tony, I think they’re still trapped under the wreckage.”

* * *

He gets the run down from Pepper, her voice slightly muffled by the ringing in his ears. He wouldn’t be able to hear her at all if she weren’t actively yelling over the commotion.

_PeterRhodeyHappyMayPeterRhodeyHappyMayPeterRhdoeyHappyMay—_

Peter had saved Pepper. He’d sensed the explosion coming, Pepper infers, and he’d pushed her off the stage; tucked her into a storage closet and then run off again like an _idiot._

Pepper doesn’t call him an idiot. That’s Tony’s addendum. He’s going to strangle that kid, or lock him in a cellar until he’s too old and decrepit to even _think_ about saving the day ever again.

Within forty seconds Tony’s back in the suit. It closes around him, a layer of titanium gold alloy to cover the ash that coats his clothing and skin. 

People stare. They point. They gape. They double-take.

But in the end the ruin of the press hall takes the cake on what’s most important. Most of them just look relieved, their shoulders sagging, tears streaming down their faces. They think they’re _saved._

Saved by a man in a tin can who can’t stop panicking about the possibility of just how much he’s lost. 

Tony starts lifting. He heaves heavy slabs of concrete out of the way and pulls bodies from the rubble. Pepper talks to him through the comms. She’s elected to save the lecture for later and simply instructs him on what to do, where to focus his efforts, what areas are most structurally sound according to the engineering expert she’s been offhandedly bickering with. 

Tony doesn’t plan on stopping. He wants to tear apart the ruin until he _knows,_ until he’s _certain,_ but then—

“Happy! Happy, oh thank god!”

Pepper’s relieved voice floods through his earpiece and has him shooting up and away, back toward the blocked off end of the street where she’s stationed. 

Happy is pulling out of Pepper’s embrace when Tony gets there. He looks terrible; suit jacket gone, covered head to foot in grime and blood and dust. 

He’s rambling deliriously. “I don’t know where she went. I can’t-I can’t find her. I’ve been calling for her and—and the kid, I don’t know where Pete is. May is gonna kill me if that kid dies on my watch, Pepper, but I can’t find them and—”

Tony grabs Happy by the shoulders and pulls him into his arms. “Breathe, Hap, okay?”

Happy falls against him. He breathes. “Fuck. _Tony.”_

His friend’s voice is broken. Scared. Vulnerable. Tony just holds him tighter, while the world moves around them; streams of high pressure water from fire-hoses arcing over their heads, the sky black from smoke, sirens wailing, thousands of voices overlapping into one panicked, harrowing hum. 

“What are you doing here?! I thought you were on lockdown at the lakehouse! What the hell, Tony?!”

“I’m sorry, did you miss the part where two thirds of my loved ones almost blew up, Hap?” Tony feels his stomach sour. “No. This trumps staying on the DL. I’m done with that. Someone messes with my family, they go through me.”

Happy presses his palms against his eyes. “And have you considered the possibility that they did this to _draw you out?”_

“Everyone thinks I’m dead—”

“People can suspect crazy things.”

“Okay really, I think you’re taking this whole forehead of security job way too seriously—”

“ _Boys.”_

They both turn to look at Pepper. She pushes her hair from her eyes. “We need to concentrate. I just called for Rescue. Tony, is there any way you can access Peter’s AI to see if you can find him? He said he was going for his backpack, I think he meant to grab the suit—”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. She can’t, because Tony kisses her. “God, I knew there was a reason I love you.”

He doesn’t hear what either of them say next. 

“FRIDAY, I need you to tap into Karen’s systems for me. Give me all the info you got.”

He’s an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. _Come on, kid. Be okay. Please be okay._

“Uploading all stats on Karen from this morning,” FRIDAY reports. 

They pop up on his interface. Tony scans them quickly. 

No activity since 10:35 AM, around the time of the explosion. The _Baby Has A Boo Boo_ protocol had been activated, which means at some point Peter had been lucid enough for Karen to administer a dose of saline and do a biometric scan: shock, smoke inhalation, a minor laceration on his forehead. 

None of it seems that bad, but at 10:37 AM it all just cuts off. There’s nothing. It’s like Karen is just… dead. 

“FRI, what the hell happened?”

“As far as I can tell, this is the last time her system was online,” FRIDAY says. “As of now, Karen isn’t active.”

“That’s not…” Tony clenches his fists. “That’s not supposed to happen. He’d need to manually do that. Can you access the Baby Monitor Footage?”

“The Baby Monitor Protocol code wasn’t configured into Peter’s new suit,” FRIDAY says. Fuck, that’s right. He’d lost the old one. _Fuck._ “Peter added all emergency medical protocols from the template for Spidey Suit Mark II, but neglected to include many others.”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

His kid. His kid is MIA, or, or maybe—

No. He can’t. He just _can’t_ think like that. 

(he can’t think like his kid is being crushed to bits under thousands of pounds of concrete; like it’s happening all again for him; like for the second time, the third time, the millionth time, tony hadn’t been able to save him) 

He’ll find him. He’ll find him and then he’ll lecture him into the next century for being so stupid and reckless and _brave—_

_RhodeyPeterMayRhodeyPeterMayRhodeyPeterMay_

* * *

The first person he finds that he actually recognises, to his reeling horror, isn’t anyone he considers family. 

It’s Christine Everheart.

She’s curled up on her side, eyes closed like she might be sleeping, but when Tony gently pushes her onto her back she just falls. 

Limp. Dead.

The right side of her head is a ruin, hair covered in congealed red blood from a gaping wound at the top of her scalp. She’s white: not the startled, sickly, injured kind.

The dead kind. Like she’s already a ghost. 

“Shit,” Tony whispers, because he remembers a time when she’d been just what he needed, and he remembers that even though she was stuck up and always out to get him, she’d just been doing her job. 

Like today. Today she’d been doing her job and she’d gotten killed. 

So Tony is gentle with her as he propulses skyward, carrying her still-warm body over to the emergency medical station, which is really just a miscellany of bodies on tarps and EMTs rushing around with dwindling med kits. 

He lays Christine down and then gets back to work.

* * *

He finds Rhodey in the ruins of what looks like a break room, or a kitchen. His best friend is slumped against an intact cabinet, illuminated by the sparks that fly from a broken fluorescent bulb which hangs, precariously, from a half-gone ceiling. 

Rhodey’s pant leg is soaked and the tiles are smeared with crimson. 

“Rhodey! Rhodes, hey, look at me!”

Nothing.

“FRIDAY, work with me here. He got a pulse?”

_Please have a pulse please have a pulse please god please—_

“Yeah, but it’s low. My scanners indicate a wound on his left thigh and a severe loss of blood. He needs medical attention stat _._ ”

“Yeah, no shit.”

Tony snaps his fingers in front of Rhodey’s face. When that doesn’t work, he shakes him. 

Rhodey wakes up with a gasp. It’s not of shock, it’s of _pain._ “Fuck, don’t—”

His hands fly up defensively but Tony grabs his wrists. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “Just me. It’s okay. Everything is gonna be just fine, I promise.”

Rhodey grunts, sitting up straighter. “T-Tony? Am I dead, man?”

“No,” Tony says, around a watery chuckle. “You’re too tough for that shit, Honeybear. Now where does it hurt?”

“Fuck if I know.”

Tony nods. Makes sense. He cuts Rhodey’s pant leg open with a retractable blade from his suit. 

“It’s the braces, isn’t it?” Rhodey guesses. “I got—I got thrown. One second I was with Pepper and then I was just… I don’t understand, Tony. _What happened?”_

It is the braces. They’d been damaged in the blast and there’s a fragment of metal puncturing Rhodey’s left thigh. 

The device Tony had designed to _save_ Rhodey is coming dangerously close to _killing_ him. 

“Tony?”

“It—there was an explosion,” Tony says, because he needs to say _something_ other than sorry. He knows Rhodey won’t accept it and then they’ll get into an argument and Rhodey will bleed out while he’s trying to tell Tony he’s _obviously not dead so stop apologising, nimrod._

“You don’t say?”

“Don’t sass me or I’ll hang you out to dry.”

Rhodey chuckles, but his face falls in an instant. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“So I’ve been told. Too late for that now, anyway. Now stay still, I’m gonna—I’m gonna pick you up and take you to Evac, okay? They’ll get you to a hospital. No, fuck it, I’ll call Cho. The compound is almost rebuilt, right? You can go there.”

“No. No way. I want to help—”

“Um, hello, I’m sorry, did you miss the metal spoke in your leg?”

Rhodey glares. “I’ve had worse.”

“You’re going to the medbay. End of story.”

“Tony—”

“Hush. FRIDAY, find me the least turbulent exit route, please?”

Rhodey grunts when Tony picks him up. He obviously has injuries aside from the leg wound, ones less pressing that FRIDAY had neglected to tell him about but are nonetheless causing him pain. 

_Ribs,_ Tony thinks. _Concussion, probably._

The path appears on his HUD. “Please proceed to the highlighted route,” FRIDAY quips.

“Ha ha, funny.”

Tony tightens his grip on his friend and tries to ignore the feeling of dread rising up inside of him. If he even so much as gives it the time of day, it’ll strangle him before he can even blink. 

_PeterMayPeterMayPeterMay—_

* * *

“Tony, it’s Peter.”

Tony freezes in the process of lifting Rhodey’s gurney into the chopper’s cabin. 

“Is he—”

“He’s… He’s okay. You should get down here.”

Tony takes a deep breath to keep from screaming. He kisses Rhodey’s cheek, warns and/or threatens the EMT to call him with any updates, and then runs.

* * *

It shouldn’t be like this. 

It shouldn’t have ever been like this; it shouldn’t have happened the way it did on Titan, with Peter shaking in his arms, saying _sorry_ because 

( _if you die, i feel like that’s on me_ )

he was just _good_ like that; eyes full of a terror he directed at the rust coloured sky instead of at Tony, because 

( _i don’t wanna go, i don’t wanna go, mr stark, please_ )

he was just _brave_ like that. 

Tony’s heart skips erratically when he lays eyes on Peter, some fifty feet from him, scanning the carnage with a vacant sort of expression like he can’t quite connect the wires in his brain. 

But he’s breathing. He’s standing upright, looking a little battered but overall okay. 

He’s not crumbling to dust in Tony’s arms or racing to save him in the middle of a battlefield, rambling about glowy circle things and how Tony hadn’t been there when he’d woken up.

He hadn’t been there, but he’s here now. 

Peter’s eyes widen when he spots Tony across the distance. Even from this far away, Tony can tell it isn’t relief; it’s almost fear, like he’s been caught at something. 

God, does the kid really think he’d tear him a new one after this? Does he actually think _any_ of this is his fault? 

Tony goes cold at the thought. 

His body moves of its own accord while his mind runs. He’s on autopilot, pulling Peter into his arms and holding him as tight as he possibly can without doing any harm. “Thank god.” He presses a kiss to Peter’s forehead.

He hardly registers how cold it is. 

It doesn’t occur to him then, just as many other things don’t, that Peter _always_ runs warm.

Tony pulls back to hastily scan him for injuries, but he keeps his hands on Peter’s shoulders because he can’t bring himself to let go. 

His face is clear other than the grime. His clothes are torn and spattered with bits of blood, but Tony can’t find any injuries; none of it is his. It must belong to the people he’d tried to save.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, cupping Peter’s face. His pupils aren’t abnormally dilated, his eyes aren’t rimmed with red.

“Yeah,” Peter sputters. “Yeah, I’m-I’m fine.”

Tony nods, but he doesn’t quite buy it. Peter is practically notorious for hiding injuries and pretending he’s in tip-top shape even when he’s bleeding out in alleyways or plucking bullets from his body. 

“FRIDAY, do a quick scan for me, please?”

FRIDAY hums. “Everything looks okay. No bodily injuries detected.”

Tony allows himself to feel relieved, just for a nanosecond.

He pulls Peter into another hug. “You seriously have to lay off on the whole almost dying thing, kiddo. I mean, I might actually have a heart attack one of these days, you know?”

Peter doesn’t say anything. 

He looks shell shocked.

“Hey,” Tony says, quietly because he wants Peter to know it’s _just them,_ even with the world in tatters they’re still okay, together. “Hey, it’s okay, Peter. Everything is gonna be fine.”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut tight and balls his fists. “Right. My… my aunt?”

Tony’s heart sinks. “Right. I, uh… I don’t know, kiddo.”

Nothing. No reaction. It’s like Peter is a skipping CD, stuck on a blank screen and not comprehending anything Tony is saying. He doesn’t have the chance to investigate that, though, because they’re swarmed by the others. 

Pepper is wearing Rescue and looking utterly worn out, but relieved to see them. Happy approaches with her. “Kid!” He says, and doesn’t give Peter a chance to react before he pulls him into a hug. “May? Did you see her?”

Peter dumbly shakes his head. 

“Pepper,” Tony says. “I think he—”

“Peter!”

A new voice, shrill and distant, makes the words die in his throat because for half a heartbeat he thinks it’s _May,_ he thinks maybe they really all did make it out of this alive and okay.

But it’s not.

It’s Peter’s girlfriend, MJ, and their round-faced friend Ned, and that other kid with the slicked back hair Tony fears might actually have the god-given name of Flash, but he hasn’t had the chance to look into that yet. 

Peter turns to the sound of her voice and doesn’t get a word in edgewise because she’s throwing her arms around him, probably knocking the wind out of him in the process. 

Peter is stiff. He holds her robotically. 

There are alarm bells going off in the back of Tony’s mind, ones he realises have actually been ringing for a few minutes now but finally take precedence. 

“Okay,” he says, “I hate to break this up, but we need to get out of here.”

Pepper grabs his arm. “Tony—”

“No, listen,” Tony says, voice sharp, “there’s a high chance whoever did this, did it to target Peter, so we’re going somewhere safe. Happy, I hate to ask, but I need you to drive to the lakehouse and pick up Morgan and Harley. Take them to the compound—”

“Tony, the compound is still missing entire _wings—_ ”

“It has a medbay. That’s all that matters.”

Pepper’s doesn’t argue even though he knows she wants to. She jerks her chin with resignation. 

“What about us?”

There’s something like fire in the expression of Michelle Jones and her eyes pierce Tony in a way very few people can manage to do. It’s the same look Rhodey had given him on the first day of college, the same look Aunt Peggy would plant on him when he told her the bruises were just from falling. 

“You’re coming with,” Tony decides, because if people are after Peter, they’re going to try to get to him any way they can. That means through his friends, through his family. Tony thanks god that in the very least his school is out, which means no serial bombings.

“Happy, take ‘em with you. Meet us there. Pete, you’re with me.”

Peter opens and closes his mouth, almost like he wants to argue but can’t quite figure out how. 

“Yeah, okay.” 

Tony nods, but he feels unsettled. Peter can speak, his motor functions seem fine, his pupils aren’t dilated—so why the fuck is he acting like he has brain damage or something?

* * *

May Parker wakes up in a white room. 

Her body feels heavy and it takes her a moment to sink back into it. Then it’s like waking up all over again, only this time the panic is wide and loud, the fear is everywhere inside of her.

She sits up and gets a head rush. May presses the heels of her palms into her eyes. If she doesn’t take a minute, if she doesn’t breathe, it’ll only get worse. She could end up with a migraine that lasts for days.

Who the fuck is she kidding? A migraine is the least of her problems.

May swallows back the acrid taste in her mouth. She can remember it now; hands, gripping her arms, the sweet smell of whatever roofie they’d given her, the sharp sting of crude brickwork digging into her skin. 

She’d been kidnapped. Taken. 

Taken… where?

A groan interrupts her thoughts and May’s blood cools.

She’s not alone. 

Slowly May raises her head. The pounding of her heart is like a dead weight in her chest, because she _knows_ that groan. She’s heard it a thousand times or more; when he’s curled up on the couch half asleep, when he’s clutching his stomach on the bathroom floor, when he’s staving off a nightmare in his sleep.

Peter is slumped over in the corner of the room. 

“Oh my god,” May breathes. “Oh my god, oh my god, _Peter.”_

She scrambled over to him. Peter doesn’t react to her presence. His eyes are closed and there’s a trail of blood falling from his lips. 

May shakes him. When that doesn’t work, she gathers her courage, whispers an apology, and slaps him.

Peter jerks awake.

“What—?”

May grabs his shoulders to steady him. “Peter,” she says. “Oh, thank god.”

Peter groans again and folds into himself. He tries to clear his vision by blinking, but the light seems to harsh for his eyes and he ends up squinting at her. “M’y? ‘S happenin’?”

“Oh, baby.” May smoothes his hair back, which is something she’s always suspected has brought her more comfort than him, but Peter still leans into her touch. “I don’t know.”

She hates not having the answers. If there’s one thing that bothers her, it’s being in the dark. It’s why she’d been so hurt when she’d found out about him being Spider-Man—because yes, it was incredibly dangerous and he was risking his life _constantly_ and that was _terrifying—_ but the thing that struck her deep was the fact that he’d been doing it all alone, that he’d been genetically mutated and enhanced and he’d hidden it from her to spare _her_ feelings. 

Peter isn’t with her in the terror now, though. He’s fading in and out, probably concussed. May tries to clear his face of some of the blood. The wound on his forehead is mostly healed by now, meaning it’s been a few hours since whatever happened, happened, but his temples are still stained with coagulated crimson. 

“Baby,” May whispers, “can you look at me?”

Peter does as she asks. His pupils are so blown it’s horrifying. The whites of his eyes are red. 

“God. Okay. Alright, can you do me a favour, baby? Can you stay awake for me?”

Peter grunts and jerks his head in some semblance of a nod, but an instant later he’s falling back against the white walls of the room. 

“No, no, no,” May grabs him, “sit up for me, kiddo.”

“M’y?”

“Yeah, baby. It’s me.”

“Hurts,” Peter says. 

May swallows convulsively but ignores it; the way her hands shake, the burning in her throat. She hones in on Peter and does her best to detach herself from the fear.

_Deep breaths, in and out._

“Where does it hurt?”

Peter gestures weakly to his abdominal area. May gathers herself. Gently, slowly, she raises his shirt. 

She’s seen him hurt before, seen him come home with webbed up stab wounds and broken noses, the occasional sprained wrist or ankle.

But May has _never_ seen him like this.

His stomach is covered in a symphony of bruises; blue and purple and red, deep and far too dark. They spread over his pale skin like spilled paint on a canvas. 

“Oh my god.”

“Bad?”

May looks up. In that moment he’s small again, just a little thing, worried he’s hurt her feelings or he’s being too much of a burden. “No,” May says, too quickly. “It’s not bad. You’re gonna be just fine.”

Peter hums. His head lolls. 

She lowers his shirt because if she keeps looking she’s going to be sick. 

“Well. This is a sweet sight.”

May rounds at the sound of an unexpected voice. There’s a man standing in the corner of the room. He hadn’t been there before, which means there’s a way to get out of here; some kind of exit that blends in perfectly with the walls. 

“Who are you?”

“You don’t know?” He steps closer, all unnatural grace and practised movements, clad in a fine-pressed suit. 

But he looks familiar. They grey, close-cropped hair, the chiselled jaw, the thin lips. 

“You’re Norman Osborn,” May realises. “You… you run Oscorp. Why—?”

Osborn holds up his hand. “You have already answered your own question. I own Oscorp. I finance every experiment and research project, and therefore the results of those enterprises belong to me. The _ramifications_ of those enterprises, May Parker, are my _responsibility.”_

His eyes fall on Peter. 

The bottom drops out of May’s stomach. 

( _And how did you acquire these abilities, Mr Parker?_

_A spider bite._

_Hey, how was the big Oscorp field trip, kiddo?_

_Good, good…_

_Are you sure? You’re looking a little fluey, actually—_ )

“Ramifications?”

“Spider-Man is the result of genetic experimentation,” Osborn says. His eyes have taken on a hungry glint. “He is the first known success in the unification of human and extrinsic DNA. His mutations… there is value in studying them.”

May glances at Peter. His eyes are closed again, his chin tucked against his chest. 

“You’re not touching him.”

Osborn takes a step closer. “He belongs to us.”

May whirls around so fast she gets whiplash. “He’s a _child._ He’s a sixteen year old boy—”

“He is the result of genetic experimentation, the first success in a twenty year long study. Spider-Man is Peter Parker, and Spider-Man is _ours.”_

May stands. “You want him, you’ll have to kill me.”

Osborn studies her. “If that’s what it takes.”

May doesn’t even have the chance to say all the things she wants to; a thousand words of fury die on her tongue as a hidden panel in the wall slides away and five men walk in.

Two of them haul Peter to his feet and he _screams._ It’s a sound of pure agony she’s never heard from him. It falls from his lips and her heart just _shatters._

“Don’t!” May shouts, but then the other two men grab her. May struggles, writhing, but they force her to her knees. “Get _off_ of me!”

“Stay silent!” Osborn barks. 

He approaches Peter slowly and stands in front of him. Peter sags. May knows he’s barely holding himself up. 

“The serum.”

The last man holds out a tray, upon which lays a syringe. Osborn takes it, flicks it. “Hold him still.”

“No!” May shouts, because it can’t happen. She doesn’t even know what they’re _doing,_ but it can’t happen. “Get off of me! Get _off of me,_ you _bastards!”_

Osborn freezes. He turns around. “What did I say?”

May grits her teeth. She struggles against the grip of her captors, but it’s like she’s shackled by iron. Sheer force of will won’t work here. 

“Listen to me,” May pleads. “Please, just _listen._ You don’t have to do this. It doesn’t have to be this way. If you want to—to study him, we could w-work something out, or—”

Osborn shakes his head and offers her a derogatory twist of his lips. 

Because they both know she doesn’t mean it. They both know there isn’t any universe or timeline where May Parker would ever willingly let this man _dissect_ her nephew. 

“Gag her.”

“No! No, please, _no—”_

Her words are muffled as a band of cloth is shoved into her mouth and tied behind her head. _Fuck,_ fuck. May screams, as loud and wrenching as she possibly can. 

It’s not fair, it’s not right. 

May only stops struggling when Osborn returns to Peter. She watches, paralysed with fear, as Osborn shoves the needle into Peter’s arm and injects him with some clear liquid.

Peter’s scream is a silent thing. His eyes widen like for the first time, he is seeing everything, he knows where he is and that he is not, by any means, safe.

And most of all, like he’s in absolute, mortal agony. 

He clutches his arm like it _burns._

_Stop it stop it stop it stop it—_

“This is one of the most complex formulas our corporation has ever produced,” Osborn says, watching with vivid interest as Peter writhes on the floor. “It’s taken us _years.”_

He glances at May. “It won’t hurt him. Well, no more than this. It simply… neutralises his enhancements. It’s not permanent. The effects should only last about an hour. We’re still working on a longer-lasting solution.”

Peter stops moving. He lies impossibly still but his chest heaves with desperate gasps. He’s still alive and May holds onto that with everything she has.

Osborn jerks his chin. “He should be lucid enough now. Pick him up.”

Peter is hauled back to his feet. He gasps, blinking dazedly, and then zeroes in on Osborn. “What…? What’s happening?”

“You tell me,” Osborn slides his hands into his suit pockets. “Everything that happens in this room is dependent on your cooperation, Mr Parker.”

“What are you—?”

Then he sees May. 

She can tell the way it hits him, the shock like a ton of bricks; the anger is different, contorting his features, locking his jaw, hardening his eyes. He’s fractured and beaten but _livid._

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with her?”

The question is directed at Osborn and May _swears_ he flinches when Peter’s gaze lands on him, if only the slightest bit. He regains his composure easily, though. 

“Consider her insurance.”

“Let her _go.”_

Osborn smiles. He shrugs easily. “No can do.” 

Peter jerks against the grip of the men holding him, but then he staggers. “What—what the hell is wrong with me? What did you _do to me?!”_

“Don’t waste your time agonising over it. I’m sure a genius like you will be able to figure it all out in a matter of time. _Now,”_ he steps forward, almost jauntily to May’s horror, “I have a question for you, Mr Parker, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that _you_ have the answer.”

Peter shakes his head. “What are you gonna do if I don’t know?”

“Oh, well that’s easy.” Osborn grins, reaches for his back, and pulls a gun from behind the jacket of his suit. “I’m going to kill your aunt.”

May jerks. Her running thoughts come to a screeching halt as she finds herself staring down the barrel of a handgun. 

They both still. 

Their eyes find each other’s at the same time. 

She sees Peter, stricken, pale, small. She sees him the same way she did the day Ben brought him home, one tiny hand wrapped around her husband’s, the cuff of his hoodie caught between his teeth, face puffy from crying because _mommy and daddy weren’t coming home—_

_—but it’s okay, Petey, because we’re here and we love you and we’re not going anywhere—_

_—May Parker?_

_Yes?_

_I apologise for the late hour, but we’re going to need you to come down to the precinct. There’s been an accident—_

_—I’m sorry, May, I’m so sorry, it was my fault—_

“Ask.”

“Hmm?”

“Ask your question.”

Peter’s voice is firm. Solid. It’s nothing like it had been when he’d finally broken down during their late night viewing of _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ ; wrapped in the blue-tinted light of the TV, silent tears streaming down his face that he’d tried to hide until she’d heard the smallest, weakest sniffle, and then he’d fallen apart.

Osborn starts to pace the cell. “I’m assuming that by now you’ve gathered we were behind the explosion at the New York Press Hall,” he says, with as much ease as a newscaster announces the morning weather. “We expected chaos, carnage, dozens dead. Collateral damage, what can you do. But what we didn’t expect, what _I_ didn’t expect, was for Tony Stark to show up in the flesh.”

May and Peter both freeze. Osborn notes their reactions with another smile. “See? I can tell, you’ve got my answer.”

“ _What. Do you want.”_ Peter grits out.

“I want to know where he is.”

May knows, instantly, with the kind of certainty that can only come with knowing someone like the back of your hand; he doesn’t want to tell. He’s thinking of Morgan, of Tony, of how many other people will be considered _collateral damage_ if he spills. 

But he can’t lose May.

“I—”

Osborn leans forward. “What was that? I didn’t catch what you said.”

“ _Please.”_

All of his anger just _melts_ away. He falls a little. May tries to reach out, but she can’t.

She can’t hold him. She can’t comfort him. She can’t even _speak._

“Please what?”

“Please,” Peter whispers, pleading, “don’t hurt her.”

“I won’t,” Osborn promises. “If you tell me what I need to know, I won’t hurt her.”

But May’s heart turns to lead because she realises, with a sickening dread, that he doesn’t mean that either. 

He’s going to kill her no matter what Peter says. 

( _we love you and we’re not going anywhere—_

_—Mrs Parker, I regret to inform you that your husband has passed away—_

_—It was my fault, it was my fault, May I’m so sorry—_ )

“ _Please._ Please just _let her go._ I’ll do anything, I’ll do whatever you want, just _please—”_

“See, that’s a lie. I can tell, because presently I’m asking you to do something and guess what, Peter?! You’re not doing it!”

Peter falls to his knees. Grapples. There are tears streaming down his cheeks and May doesn’t want to see that, doesn’t want the last time she lays eyes on her baby to be like this.

She wants to remember the good times, the times with sunshine, when she and Ben would take him to the park and buy him ice cream; when he came home two days before Mother’s Day clutching a poorly painted depiction of her favorite flower, all gap-toothed and beaming, _I know you’re really my aunt, but… thank you, May. For everything._

“Please—”

“Peter,” May shouts, muffled and unintelligible but she _has to._ “Don’t!”

“Please, I swear to god—”

“Five seconds, Peter.”

“Please, she doesn’t have anything to do with this, you don’t have to do this—”

“Four seconds.”

“Peter!”

“I swear to god, if you touch her, I’ll kill you—”

“Three seconds.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Two.”

“ _No—”_

“One!”

“ _Okay!”_

Osborn halts. He’s standing twelve inches from May. The gun is pressing into her scalp and she realises, suddenly, that she’s crying. 

They both are. 

“What?”

“A lakehouse,” Peter blurts. “Upstate. I don’t know—I don’t know the exact address, but they’re upstate. _Please,_ please, don’t hurt May. _Please?”_

Osborn absorbs that. He doesn’t look at all surprised.

The marrow in her bones freezes. 

_He already knew._

Somehow, he already knew all of that. 

Osborn hums. He looks down at May, considers her with a tilt of his head, and then fingers the gag out of her mouth. 

May throws up a little. She swallows back the bile. “ _Peter—_ ”

“May, I’m sorry, I’m so, _so_ sorry—”

“Don’t,” she orders, with a finality that brings him pause. “I love you, baby, okay? It’s not your fault. I love you so, _so_ much.”

_More than you could ever know_

(we love you)

_You’re gonna be okay_

(we’re not going anywhere) 

_Please, if there’s a god, let him live_

Osborn nods slowly. He’s coming to some decision. “Thank you, Peter,” he says sincerely. “Your cooperation is much appreciated.”

One heartbeat. 

It’s like a gavel signifying a sentence. A condemnation. 

Peter’s eyes widen and track a movement May can’t see.

Osborn cocks the gun and pulls the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eym s o r r y :)

**Author's Note:**

> follow my tumblr: @peter-stank <3


End file.
